


Watching the World Burn

by Flamesong



Series: Repairing the World [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Anti-Faunus Racism (RWBY), Body Modification, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Faunus Yang Xiao Long, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Prequel, Suicidal Thoughts, Threading the Needle of Destiny - Cycle 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:46:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 39,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23707105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flamesong/pseuds/Flamesong
Summary: Remnant’s self-appointed saviors have made it to Atlas with the Relic of Knowledge, but everything about the kingdom looks wrong. What has General Ironwood been doing here since the Fall of Beacon? Before they can even meet him and find out, tragedy strikes, and Team RWBY is shattered once again.Faced with a pain greater than anything else in her life, Yang turns to the one person who she knows has felt the same, long ago. Following in Salem’s own footsteps may not bring her lost love back to life, but at least she has someone who understands, and who is just as ready to see humanity burn as she now is. And in person, Salem isn’t nearly as scary as Yang had always thought. After all, as Jinn showed her, beneath the immortality and the magic there’s still a woman like any other.A prequel to the Cycle 5 timeline of Threading the Needle of Destiny.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long (formerly), Salem/Yang Xiao Long
Series: Repairing the World [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707376
Comments: 93
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to Threading the Needle of Destiny, set during the timeline known as Cycle 5. Its events were summarized in that fic, but I received multiple requests to go more in depth on this segment, and show Yang's relationship with the original Salem of that timeline before the primary one arrived in her place. 
> 
> As with the main fic, this timeline is canonical through the end of Volume 6 and then diverges. The group landed in Mantle and did not meet either Pietro or the Ace Ops, because when Cycle 5 was written, none of that had yet been released. Some details of Atlas and its Relic are also different from what we were later shown.

Yang ran. 

The streets of Mantle were empty at this time of night, silence broken only by the pounding of feet and Yang’s labored breathing, and the whimpers and cries that threatened to overwhelm her if she slowed down even just for a moment. 

The sounds of fighting still echoed in her ears. The thud of fists, the clash of blades striking against Aura, the shouts and taunts of five Atlesian military thugs on a power trip. The sound of Blake calling her name, almost drowned out by five humans who considered her less than a person. 

The feeling of Oscar’s – no,  _ Ozpin’s  _ – iron grip on her wrist. They had gotten to Blake in time. This scouting mission gone wrong could have been salvaged. They could have returned to the safehouse and planned out their next move for getting up to Atlas and meeting with the General. But  _ Ozpin _ thought it was too important to stay on the military’s good side. Even when a life was at stake. 

To him, it was all for the greater good. We must get the lamp to Atlas, so he’d said. And they had, even while Ozpin hid from them, avoiding responsibility, ignoring his problems and doing  _ nothing _ just like he’d done for so long, letting Yang and her team do all the work and face all the opposition themselves.

When did he choose to come back? Not when they needed an explanation and a plan, after Jinn’s revelations. Not when they needed knowledge and motivation to escape the Apathy. Not when his connections or a bit of magic could have gotten them off the coast of Argus without a fight. Not when he could have guided them to Docking Bay 12 instead of landing in Mantle and running for their lives. 

Now, Ozpin returned. On a scouting mission around a military base, but did he use the passcodes he certainly knew to buy them passage? Of course not. Did he use his millennia of training to fight off five well-armed attackers with nothing but a cane? Of course not. He saw one of his teammates victimized by the very people whose boss he wanted to meet, and he chose a  _ chance _ of getting the lamp to a now very questionable ally over the  _ very real _ lynching before his eyes. 

With every step she took, Yang hated him more. Blake’s blood was on his hands just as much as those racists at the base. 

A crossroads was coming up, but it didn’t matter which way she went. Anywhere was fine. Anywhere would take her farther away from the horror. Straight ahead would do. 

Two hooded figures stepped out from the cross street, too late for Yang to change course. She crashed into the one in front and both tumbled to the ground, and she looked up through teary eyes at the hooded woman still standing beside them. She wore a gray cloak much like Ruby’s, and underneath it could be seen short silver hair and some kind of headband. Yang struggled to her feet and wiped some of the tears from her face, and looked to the man she had collided with. 

A long metal tail poked out beneath his brown cloak, ending in a vicious stinger filled with purple liquid. His hood had fallen back to reveal a long braid and yellow eyes, and as he pushed himself up, metal claw blades could be seen folded down against his wrists. 

“Tyrian…?”

The man’s eyes widened and he took a half step back. “You know me? Should I be honored or afraid?” From the slight bow he gave following that, it was clear he was not the slightest bit afraid. “What’s a poor, lost little girl doing out here at this time of night? Just  _ asking _ for trouble, aren’t you?” His tail waved menacingly. 

“You work for Salem. You attacked my friends.” Yang struggled to recall the name of the small village in western Anima. “In Oniyuri. You poisoned my uncle Qrow.”

“Ohhh, well, this  _ is _ a treat…” Tyrian grins. “Here I was, on my way for a rematch, and then here you come, all alone.”

Thoughts raced through Yang’s mind. She hated Ozpin more than anything, now. Tyrian worked for Ozpin’s enemy, and presumably so did this strange silent woman behind him. “I don’t want a fight,” Yang said, though her voice was shaking with anger. “I want you to take me to Salem.”

“And why should I do that?”

Yang glanced at the silver-haired woman briefly then returned her gaze to Tyrian, blinking away another round of tears. “Because I want to defect.”

Tyrian froze, and then he too glanced back at the hooded woman. 

“Why?” she finally asked. “What reason do you have to serve Her Grace?”

“I want Ozpin  _ dead, _ ” Yang snarled. “Same as you. And I have information  _ she _ ’ll want to know.”

The woman stared back with a neutral expression while she considered Yang’s words. “Alright,” she said. “Come with me. I will deliver you to Salem. Tyrian, try not to do anything  _ exceptionally _ stupid tonight. Recall that you came to me because you didn’t think you could fight them all on your own.”

She pushed her hood back to reveal the black glass band circling all the way around her head, over her shiny silver hair, and turned to walk back the way she had come. “Follow me,” she commanded, and Yang fell in behind her. “My name is Eve. You?”

“Yang.”

“I hope you’re serious about this, Yang.” She spoke to the air in front of her without a backward glance. “If you have doubts about joining Salem, you have very little time to reconsider.”

“I bet I know more about Salem than you do.” Yang glanced down at her hands, free from any sort of bindings. “And you’re just letting me walk freely behind you. That’s some trust.”

“I do not trust you until Her Grace does,” Eve said. “I don’t need handcuffs. You cannot lay a finger on me.” An invisible force pulled at Yang’s hands and forced them together at the wrists, then faded again to free her. “There is an airship up ahead. I will commandeer it for us, and fly us to Salem.”

Up ahead was another military outpost, smaller than the other one. A single airship rested in a corner and a pair of soldiers stood by the gate. Yang’s hands clenched into fists at the sight of them, but a slight pressure from an invisible source kept them pinned to her sides. 

“Atlas Special Operative Eve Silver, transporting classified materials,” Eve declared at the gate. A badge of some sort appeared in her hand, and the two guards nodded and let her and Yang pass. 

“This would be the point of no return,” Eve commented as the pair took seats in the airship’s front cabin. “If you wish to back out and remain Salem’s enemy, you should do so before we lift off. We will be leaving the Kingdom of Atlas for a place where your friends cannot easily follow.”

“Take me to Salem,” Yang repeated grimly. “Ozpin is no friend of mine. The rest of them ought to leave him too.”

“As you wish.” The airship’s engine kicked on, and it rose into the air over Mantle. It turned to face westward, then zoomed forward on a straight line path away from the city. 

* * *

“Your Grace, I bring you a member of Ozpin’s team,” Eve announced loudly, as the giant double doors opened on their own in front of her. 

It had been a long flight westward and Yang had slept through some of it, looking out the window for the rest, and so she knew she was now on the unsettled continent west of Solitas, north of Vacuo. It was still night outside, as their westward flight had almost perfectly matched the sun’s path across the other side of the world, and the moonlight filtered through tall glass windows to illuminate the meeting hall. 

Salem rested in her seat on the far end of the long table, but the room was otherwise unoccupied. Eve led the way in and went around to the left of the table, but Yang stopped at its end to face Salem across its length, until the witch waved her right hand as a casual invitation to approach. The heavy stone chair by Salem’s right hand slid outward as she approached and Yang took a seat, while Eve sat directly across from her. 

“Yang Xiao Long…” Salem regarded the new arrival with interest. “I’ve heard you wish to join the cause.”

“I want Ozpin dead for what he’s done. I will never support him again, and I will do everything in my power to get my friends away from him.”

“I see. And just what  _ has _ he done now, to provoke such ire from one of his own?”

Yang paused a moment, and glanced back at Eve. “Are you sure you want her to hear everything?” she asked Salem. “I’ve recently acquired quite a lot of  _ knowledge. _ ”

Salem raised one eyebrow at the reference to the Relic she’d come so close to taking for herself. “Eve is my most useful and most trusted lieutenant,” she said. “She can hear anything you have to say.”

“Okay then…” Yang took a deep breath and fought back another wave of tears. “My first love was unfairly taken from me before her time. The closest thing to a god of good in the modern world allowed it to happen, and refused my pleas for help. So now I’ve come to face the closest thing to a god of evil.” 

Salem stared at her, looking almost unsure of herself now. “I assume it was not Ozpin who told you everything you learned?” she asked quietly. 

Yang shook her head. “I’ve come to you because you understand. We are the same, now. And you survived, so I will follow your example.”

“I survive everything,” Salem said flatly. “That’s no guarantee others will do the same. But… I do know  _ exactly _ what you’re feeling at the moment, and I empathize. You may stay. Eve, please set Yang up in one of the empty bedrooms on the right. We will reconvene in the morning.”


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Yang found herself up early, back in the same stone chair next to Salem, watching as Hazel carried two extras in from a storage room downstairs and set them up in the middle of the table, between the others. There was only one new addition to Salem’s team last night, but with Eve still here away from her usual post in Atlas, she was given a permanent spot as well. 

The rest of the team filed in one by one: Hazel across from Yang, Eve next to him, and then two people Yang had hoped she might never see again. Emerald and Mercury. They stood by the seat on the far end of Yang’s side of the table, alternating between staring at her and looking nervously between themselves. 

That seat was clearly Cinder’s, and her two troublemakers were unsure if they were allowed to sit in it. Although Cinder was dead, right? Could she really have survived whatever the Spring Maiden did to her at Haven? One of the other empty seats had to belong to Tyrian, who Yang knew was in Atlas, and then there was a third which she could not put a name to. 

“We have a new addition to our group,” Salem said, getting right down to business without a greeting. “Everyone, meet Yang Xiao Long. I believe you’ve all encountered her before as an enemy, but now she has come to our side. Yang, this is your new team. The only person you may not know is Dr Arthur Watts, who is currently assisting Tyrian with our operations in Atlas.”

Yang looked first to Emerald and Mercury. “You two I know far too well. You got me disqualified from the Vytal Festival. But as loathsome as it sounds, I  _ suppose _ we’re on the same side now.” She sneered and looked across the table to continue. “Eve, I met last night. And you… Hazel, was it?”

The giant man nodded. “We met at Haven. Your teammates fought admirably.”

“So,” Salem continued, “this changes things significantly. Tyrian and Watts have their assignments already, to take the Relic of Knowledge while it is in Watts’s domain of expertise. Eve can continue to manage the rest of Atlas. That leaves four of us now, five if Cinder returns from her isolation, and I believe that is sufficient to launch a secondary objective.”

“Cinder is alive?” Yang couldn’t help but speak up. “How did she survive the battle at Haven?”

“I don’t know,” Salem said, choosing not to point out any minor breach of protocol. “Perhaps you could tell us all what you saw there? Emerald informed me that it was you who came back up with the Relic.”

Yang nodded. “Emerald and Mercury tried to stop me from going after Cinder. They slowed me down. By the time I got into the vault, Vernal was dead, and Cinder was missing. I talked to my mother, Raven. The real Spring Maiden. She didn’t receive the powers after Vernal died, she had them the entire time. Vernal was a fake. I told Raven that if she’s so much of a coward, she really didn’t want another target on her back. She left, and I went through the door alone to take the Relic.”

“What was it like inside the vault?”

“Big,” is all Yang could say. “Endless, even. It was just… sand. And the sky was white. The lamp floated over a pedestal a short ways in.”

At the other end of the table, Mercury’s eyes narrowed. “The sky? Underground?”

“Magic,” Salem said, and he shut up. “That matches what I know of the vaults. A space bordering the world but not quite within it. Thank you, Yang.”

“So why is she here now, anyway?” Mercury spoke up again. 

“Yang gave me her reasons when we met last night,” Salem answered him, “and we need not rehash it publicly. But it seems Yang and Hazel have much in common.”

“My condolences,” Hazel rumbled. 

“I will kill Ozpin as many times as it takes,” Yang spat, “for him to get it through that stolen skull of his that  _ people’s lives matter. _ ”

Salem smirked. “And he thinks  _ I’m _ the one who doesn’t understand the importance of life and death. Every time Ozpin reincarnates, he loses his personal connections and his cane, and he finds himself scattered randomly across Remnant. There is usually no downside to killing him repeatedly and often.”

“Except his innocent victims,” Yang pointed out. “That’s why I didn’t kill him myself last night. Because Oscar is still in there with him. But the moment he’s gone…”

“The boy was unlucky,” Hazel admitted, “but he’s doomed either way. Better to end it quickly, and let him be free of that monster in death.”

“Your Grace,” Eve spoke up while Yang was considering those last words, “In light of recent developments, what are our current plans?”

“Protect the Relic of Creation,” Salem answered immediately. “We own much of Atlas, but the General might be revitalized by Ozpin’s appearance. Keep it close, and if necessary, remove it from the enemy’s reach.”

“Understood.” Seeing Yang’s confusion, Eve turned her head to stare at her, finally looking somewhere other than straight out the opposite window. A wreath of blue fire sprang up from her eyes, just for a moment, and then it was gone. 

Yang’s own eyes opened wide. “You’re the Winter Maiden? Does… does he  _ know? _ I thought he kept tabs on all four.”

“I can fill you in later,” Salem said. “We have much to discuss in private anyway. For now… I believe it may be worthwhile to take a new look at Beacon Academy, and the Relic of Choice. I understand Shade was next on our list, but now that we have a recent Beacon student, we may be able to finish the job there soon.” 

She let out a small sigh. “As long as Cinder can be brought under control. I will need some time to plan the details. You are all dismissed.”

* * *

They did indeed have much to discuss in private later. Yang sat on the edge of Salem’s bed just next to the witch, as the small but functional bedroom had no actual chairs. She had just finished telling the story of her team’s journey from Mistral to Argus, and then to Mantle. The period just after the train crash was of particular interest to Salem, naturally. She hadn’t fought a team this well-informed in centuries, perhaps ever, although from the students’ reactions it certainly seemed like their relationship with Oz was fracturing. 

“So the lamp only has one question left,” Salem mused. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to tell when the first of this century’s three was used. Quite possibly just after the Great War, before the school was founded over it. But it could have been as recent as ten years ago, before the previous Spring Maiden was lost.”

“Is there anything you desperately want to ask?”

“Nothing that can’t wait a few decades, if your friends decide to use the last one now. In a way, I’m almost glad Ruby revealed everything like that. Ozma has never been particularly forthcoming with the truth, but Jinn gladly lays it all out in the open.”

“I don’t think I’d be here without seeing all that,” Yang said. “I didn’t trust him before, but that was beyond anything I ever imagined he could be hiding. Not just about you and him together, even just you…” Yang snorted. “He doesn’t want anyone knowing that you’re capable of love and pain and emotion like anyone else. A distant, faceless evil is easier to fight than a flesh and blood person you can meet.” 

“Tactically, that’s a sound move.” Salem nodded. “Since I try to stay in the shadows, he gets to control most of my public image. But I understand how difficult it must be for the people working for him. Maybe some of your friends can also switch sides.”

Yang looked down at her feet. “I  _ know _ he’s been lying to them about Blake. About what those  _ racists _ did to her. About what  _ he _ did. I’d drop Atlas from the sky if I could. All those  _ humans _ deserve it.”

“If he has been lying – which I agree is likely – then you could tell them the truth. You could take Eve with you for safety, and even kill Ozpin on the spot if you so desired.”

“I… Oscar… I just don’t know if I can face them all again right now.” Yang rested her head in her hands. “How did you deal with it, back then? Losing Ozma, when you’d only just found him? What did you do to get through that?”

Now it was Salem’s turn to sigh heavily. “Nothing good, I’m afraid. Mostly I tried to kill myself a thousand different ways. You shouldn’t follow my example there. It might actually work, for you.”

Salem turned her hand palm up and pushed back the sleeve of her dress. “A consequence of my immortality is that I cannot even be injured, because too many small injuries might still lead to death. If I could, these arms would have more scars than skin. I still feel pain in the moment, but my body shows no record.” She pulled her sleeve back down and continued in a quieter voice, “Sometimes I wish it would.”

“I’m sorry,” is all Yang could say. She picked up a hand intending to rest it over Salem’s, then thought better of the idea and returned it to her lap. 

“It all gets washed away, concealed, lost into memory alone… and even the best memory can’t hold thousands of years of life. When every bad day is erased from my skin, it’s so easy to think they never happened and everything was fine, and that only makes the next pain worse. Scars would tell me I’m not alone, even if my only company is my past self. Instead, I have to write journals. I built a new wing of this castle just to have a library to hold them all.”

“Do you think that would help me with… with Blake?”

Salem shrugged. “It can’t hurt? It’s what I do, with all the time I spend here while my agents are out on missions. When I fill a book I color-code the spine to show each day at a glance, good or bad.”

“That’s clever… You can find encouragement when you need it, or at least company in what you’re feeling. Maybe I should try it.”

“You could, though being mortal limits the usefulness. And back to your immediate concern… I’m not sure our situations are really even that alike,” Salem admitted. “Ozma was sent back and we continued our relationship. It only ended when he betrayed me, and, well… that works wonders for getting over someone. Even then, it took me decades to really accept it. Lifetimes, even.”

Yang looked back to meet Salem’s eyes, her own now sparkling with tears. “So there’s really nothing to do but to wait it out and cry until I can’t anymore?”

Salem nodded solemnly. “You’re in for a lot of crying, and even when you think it’s over, it can still come back and hit you again. But as my library can attest, the periods in between the crying spells do get longer. And…” She forced a slight smile. “You do have a shoulder to cry on, which is more than I had back then.”

“Thanks. I… might really need it.”

“Never hesitate to call on me,” Salem said. “I want my team to be at their best, and you know I’m not exactly  _ busy _ here. I may not be  _ good _ at emotional support, but I’ll do whatever I can to make you comfortable here.”

Yang finally gave a half-smile of her own. “I think you might be better at it than you realize.”


	3. Chapter 3

Another meeting in the main hall. But this time, not with everyone. Eve had already left to go back to Atlas, to take care of whatever it was she did there. Probably a lot of lying to the General, considering she’s a Special Operative who actually works for Salem. Emerald and Mercury were still on their extended break from duty, so long as Cinder remained away. For whatever was happening today, only Hazel and Yang were needed. 

“Yang, I would like to give you your first mission for me.” Salem folded her hands in front of her chest. “The Relic of Choice is the most important of the four. It is the one Ozpin wanted to watch over personally – the one at Beacon Academy. In anticipation of Cinder returning to us, I would like a scouting expedition to assess Beacon’s defenses. Hazel, do you believe professors other than Ozpin would recognize you?”

“Doubtful, ma’am. Qrow Branwen didn’t know me at Haven. Even if they’ve been told my name, they may not connect it to my face.”

“Besides,” Yang pointed out, “who’d expect someone like him to walk peacefully into Beacon and ask to speak to Professor Goodwitch?”

“True.” Salem nodded. “The audacity alone is a good disguise. You can tell the Headmistress that you’ve been working with the new Ozpin since the Fall of Beacon, and for you at least, that’s mostly true. Find out everything you can about the Relic and its guards.”

“Do you want us to go right now?”

“Not immediately, but today. I do apologize for the perhaps excessive supervision, Yang, but it is your first assignment. For now, is there anything else you can tell me which might be important to our future plans? Not just about Beacon, but Ozpin, the other Relics, anything?”

Yang pursed her lips for a moment as she thought. “Ozpin’s current host doesn’t like him,” she said finally. “Oscar wants to separate, but I don’t think they can. Ozpin hid for a while after his secrets were revealed, but he’s back now. He’ll be distracted as long as there’s fighting in his head.”

“That child deserved better,” Hazel commented, “but there’s nothing we can do for him now except grant a merciful death.”

“You’ll have to get in line.” Yang rolled her eyes. “Anyway, Ozpin literally has no real plan to stop you, Your Grace. We asked him flat out, what is the master plan, and he admitted he’s just winging it day by day. That was right before he locked himself away.”

Salem’s smile widened until finally she just started laughing. “Oh, that’s the best news I’ve had in decades!” She shook her head, still grinning. “It’s seemed that way for a while now, but just admitting it… What a  _ useless _ hero the gods appointed.”

“General Ironwood, Professor Goodwitch, any of Ozpin’s inner circle, they won’t know any of the things we learned from the lamp,” Yang continued. “Uncle Qrow didn’t know. He punched Oz in the face and called meeting him the worst luck he’s ever had.”

“Good for him. Is there anything else?”

“Um…” Yang paused to think again. “Did Adam Taurus work for you?”

“Only indirectly,” Salem answered. “We’ve never met. He doesn’t know anything about magic.”

“Well, he’s dead now. He came after us again, and Blake and I killed him.”

“Hmm. Good riddance.” Salem shrugged. “After what happened at Haven, he’d lost any value as a force of destruction anyway. One less man like him in the world can only be a good thing.”

Yang nodded, pleased that her new master seemed to dislike the man just as much as she did. Spending a few days with Salem had raised her opinion of the witch greatly – a much needed change, as hatred for Ozpin could only carry her so far. She still wanted some details on what exactly Salem’s own master plan was, but even with only the knowledge she had before, she trusted that there was probably something else going on besides destruction for its own sake. 

“That’s all I can think of at the moment,” Yang said. “I don’t know anything about the Summer Maiden, and didn’t know Winter until meeting her here. Ozpin won’t have told anyone else what he knows yet, not unless they’ve made it to Ironwood and one of them mentions Eve.”

“Thank you, Yang. You are both dismissed. Leave for Vale whenever you are ready.”

* * *

“Man, I haven’t set foot in this place since the Fall.” Yang looked all around her as she and Hazel walked up the main entrance path into Beacon Academy. “Looks like they’re still holding classes though. Just sort of… working around the giant dragon on the tower.” She stopped suddenly as a new thought occurred to her. “Oh no… I never cleaned out my dorm room. I don’t think any of us did.”

“Whatever was there, you haven’t needed it in over a year,” Hazel pointed out. 

“I suppose. Anyway, we’ve got an appointment with Glynda. She seemed very eager to meet when I texted her on the way in.”

The new Headmistress’s office was not in the same place as the last one – since Ozpin’s office, of course, had seen a wyvern fly through it, and the Grimm’s continued presence made rebuilding impossible. Glynda had kept the same old office from her time as a professor, on the third floor of Beacon Tower. It had suffered a shock in the Fall of Beacon, but the lower floors of the building had been put back to rights within a week or two. 

When the pair arrived and knocked on her door, Glynda opened it at once to usher them in. She looked the same as Yang remembered, except older. A little too much older, actually, given that it had only been a year. It must have been a stressful time, trying to put Beacon back together in the wake of the destruction. 

“Miss Xiao Long! It’s so good to see you again. Who is this you’ve brought with you?”

“Rain Hansa, Huntsman,” Hazel said, and offered a handshake. 

“Thanks for seeing us so quickly,” Yang said as she took a seat. 

Glynda took a deep breath and pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “You said you’d been with Professor Ozpin. That means you know…”

“We know everything. We’re here to make sure the Relic of Choice is safe. We were both at the battle at Haven not long ago, where Salem almost took the Relic of Knowledge. But she didn’t. I got the lamp instead. It’s with Oz and the rest of my team now, in Atlas.”

“Atlas?” Glynda frowned. “How did you get in? The border is still closed.”

“We went through Argus and used one of their military airships to cross.” Yang left out the part where said airship was stolen, and the city of Argus was nearly destroyed by an enormous leviathan. “It should be safe there. The Winter Maiden is on our side.”

“That’s good to hear,” Glynda said, unaware that Yang and Rain’s side was not the same as hers. “Nobody has sighted the Fall Maiden here since the attack. I expect she will return at some point, but for now the crown is still in its vault. Unless Cinder is no longer Fall?”

“Too much to hope for, I’m afraid,” Yang answered with a wistful smile. 

“She was at the attack on Haven too,” Hazel added. “She fought the Spring Maiden and lost, but she survived. We don’t know where she went after that.”

“Can we see the vault itself?” Yang asked. “The Relic actually is in there, right? Oz said once that he made it harder to find than the others, but he wouldn’t make that whole thing a decoy, would he?”

“It’s there.” Glynda stood up from her desk. “Follow me. I’ll take you to see it.”

The three filed out and went to the elevator, repaired after Cinder had destroyed it, but still marked with more buttons than the tower had floors. Glynda typed in a passcode on the screen above the panel and Yang could tell it was four digits, but she couldn’t make out the exact digits. She exchanged a glance with Hazel and hoped that whatever he was noting down in his scroll was the complete code. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Glynda said as they stepped out and began walking through the candlelit halls below the school. “It’s been hard without Ozpin. I know he comes back, but I’ve had no contact with him. I’ve even considered creating my own team in his absence, finding a few people I can trust to help keep the crown safe. Even just running the school is difficult, with that wyvern dropping goop all the time and spawning new Grimm.”

“I don’t think you’ll need to bring anyone else in,” Yang said hastily. “If Cinder hasn’t been sighted in Vale, let them focus on the school. Has there been any progress on repairing the CCT?”

“Not enough. I see all the reports now that I’m on the Council in Ozpin’s place. If I’m understanding correctly, the engineers need specifications from the other towers to make sure they’re doing it right… but they can’t get those with inter-kingdom communications offline. It’s been slow going as they try to reinvent it all from scratch.”

Glynda turned a corner in the many identical passageways, and the group finally came to an enormous door set into the end of the hall. It was the same shape as the one below Haven, a tall almost-rectangle that narrowed only slightly as it went up, capped with a shallow triangle. But where Yang had previously seen a hint of circular golden disks like flowers folding in on themselves as her mother opened the door, this one’s surface was different. 

This door was divided into halves, gold on the right and a deep midnight blue on the left, with a channel of Ozpin’s own green running up the middle. Curved paths branched off the main one into each side, fading into each side’s background color as they went, and smaller channels broke away from those in an ever-denser filigree. Taken as a whole it almost looked like the veins of a leaf, except for the few channels that arced backward from their origins and crossed the midline into the other side. 

“This is the vault for the Relic of Choice,” Glynda said. “It requires the Fall Maiden to open… but she can’t do it alone. Ozpin did protect the crown more strictly than the other Relics. He always said it needed both the Maiden and the one who gave her her power – namely, himself. The Relic cannot be accessed without both, though I don’t believe they have to be here at the same time.”

“Interesting…” Hazel murmured. “If Ozpin is part of the key, that means Cinder cannot take it alone.”

“She’d have to capture him first,” Yang added, thinking out loud. “Which might have been what she was doing at the Fall of Beacon, and he made sure he died instead, so he couldn’t be used on the vault.”

“A smart move,” Glynda said, “but terribly inconvenient to Beacon and the rest of us.”

“If Cinder even knew that another key was needed,” Hazel pointed out. It was news to him and Yang, so presumably Cinder also would have thought the Fall Maiden would be enough. At least they would have plenty to report to Salem later, even if the news was not good. 

Glynda gazed up and the giant door a moment longer, then sighed and turned away. “We should head back. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you two would stick around here? We’re in desperate need of additional professors, Mr Hansa… and I’d feel better having other people in the know nearby.”

“I’m afraid not,” Yang answered with a shake of her head. “We were just sent to make sure the Relic of Choice was safe. As long as Knowledge is still out in the open, we need to return to Atlas to protect it.”

“I understand. Good luck. I don’t envy you on the front lines. But Yang, if you ever do want to return and finish your studies, Beacon’s doors will always be open.”


	4. Chapter 4

Salem’s eyes narrowed as Yang and Hazel stepped in for their mission report. “What’s that you’ve brought back with you?”

Yang placed the plastic carrier on the table and opened the hinged lid. “A cat!” she exclaimed, already lifting the animal out to show to her master. “Isn’t she cute?”

The cat was solid black, except for a tiny white spot under her chin. She rested comfortably in Yang’s arms and tilted her head up to look into Yang’s eyes, and the girl smiled back and carried her forward to settle down into the usual seat by Salem’s left hand. 

“A black cat?” Salem watched her approach. “I am not certain this is a healthy coping mechanism, Yang.” 

“That’s… not  _ entirely _ the reason I wanted a black cat,” Yang said. “We can talk about it later. The mission went well.”

“So it did,” Hazel confirmed. “Yang proved loyal and we discovered quite a bit about Beacon and the Relic.”

“Oh?” Salem raised one eyebrow and waited for one of them to continue. 

“Beacon is defenseless,” Hazel said. “Goodwitch is the only person who knows anything, and we discouraged her from forming a new team there. The school is functioning, but only barely. Cinder has not returned to the area.”

Salem nodded. “So if we bring Cinder back, there is little stopping us from taking the Relic of Choice. Very good.”

“It’s not that simple, I’m afraid.” Hazel frowned at the memory of the professor’s words. “The Fall Maiden alone is not enough. It needs both Cinder  _ and _ Ozpin.”

“What?”

“There might be another way,” Yang jumped in. “Glynda’s wording was a bit shifty. What she said was ‘the one who gave the Maidens their power’. Ozpin likes to take credit for that. Before we got the lamp he told us he gave up most of his power to create them… but you know he didn’t really. I think  _ you _ could put your hand on the door instead.”

“Is that so?” Salem’s interest was piqued. “If that exact wording is accurate, then it likely  _ would _ open to me… And once again, it is boldness that grants us the advantage. As you two just proved, Ozpin’s inner circle is blind to my own lieutenants walking into his sanctum in broad daylight and asking for a personal tour of his treasures. He probably believes I would never leave this castle and go to Beacon myself. He’s wrong.”

As she spoke, the black cat climbed out of Yang’s lap and padded across the table to push her head into Salem’s hands. The witch gave her a few pets and could not help but smile a little. 

“Have you anything else to report?”

“No, Your Grace,” Hazel said. 

“One thing, actually.” Yang held up a finger. “Not to report, but… is there any way to get scroll service here? I had it again in Vale, but…”

“Ah, yes, there is. Hazel, you may go. Yang, would you hand me your scroll?” Salem held out one hand, only for the cat to bump it with her head again. “This is a very friendly cat you’ve brought. How do you plan to take care of it, thousands of miles from the nearest pet supply store?”

“I’m thinking of naming her Nightshade.” Yang held out her scroll for Salem to take, as Hazel made his way out of the meeting hall. “The shelter in Vale gave me some food, but, uh… yeah. I’m not sure, actually. Sorry. Um, Your Grace.”

Yang picked the cat up to give Salem room to work, as she held the scroll in one hand and passed the other over it. Salem silently mouthed a few words and her fingers glowed teal for a moment, and then she handed the scroll back. 

“I’ve enchanted it the way all of ours are, to reach CCT signals over vast distances. You should be able to connect to any of the four kingdoms’ towers now, but their networks are still separate from each other. The signal can still be blocked, but it is much stronger than it was before.”

Salem took out her own scroll from a pocket and slid it open to send a few lines of text. Moments later, the double doors swung open again and Eve stepped in, carrying with her a silver staff tipped with a yellow gem that seemed to glow from within. 

“Ah, wonderful,” Salem said with a smile. “The Relic of Creation.”

“I removed it for safety, as you instructed, Your Grace. Ozpin’s team have met with General Ironwood. They have accomplished nothing but both have become more suspicious of the rest of the kingdom. Doctor Watts is handling the consequences of removing the scepter without warning.”

“Very good.” Salem nodded. “Hand that to me, please?”

The Relic floated through the air to meet Salem’s hand. She pointed its crystal tip at the table in front of Yang, and a moment later a bag of dry cat food appeared out of thin air with a faint pop. 

“Luckily for miss Nightshade, we now have the ability to create anything we may need at no cost.”

Yang could only stare at the feat of divine magic before her. Was that really what the Relic of Creation did? It made sense, creating anything with a thought, but without a usage limit like the lamp of Knowledge? Any item that the staff’s bearer could focus on? That did seem to be its function. 

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Yang managed to get out through her shock. “Now, the true reason I wanted a cat right now… It  _ is _ to honor Blake, but not as a substitute. I want to become a cat Faunus like her. With magic, can you, uh…” She gestured to the top of her head. 

Salem’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure? I did graft a new arm onto Cinder after your sister took off the original, but that was Grimm… Do you really want an earless cat running around the castle?”

“If I may…” Eve cut in, “My Semblance might be of some help? While giving Yang the cat ears she desires, and then perhaps to put Grimm ears on the cat?”

“Hmm… perhaps. That sounds like a workable idea.”

* * *

The castle’s bathroom door swung open silently, only making a soft thud as it struck the wall behind. Ahead were two sinks, and another door on the far side which often led to this room being used as a shortcut between the meeting hall and the secondary training arena where Salem expected her newest recruit to be. 

She did  _ not _ expect to see Yang here, missing her usual jacket and even her shirt, bending backwards at the knees with her shoulders resting on the edge of the sink. In one hand she held a small mirror and the other was stained black with dye, the same color filling the basin behind her head. At the sound of the door Yang looked over to her, but did not stand up. She mumbled a strained greeting and went back to massaging color into her long, thick hair. 

“Yang…” Salem got the girl’s attention again. “There are people who could help you with that, you know.” Given the situation, she couldn’t bring herself to simply launch directly into the news she had intended to bring. 

“Well, come help, then.” No sooner had the words left her mouth than Yang’s eyes went wide as she realized just who she was speaking to, and the breath caught in her throat. “Sorry, I mean, uh… Still not quite used to the whole ‘actually giving a shit about authority’ thing, Your Grace.”

Salem stared at her for a moment, then began to smile. “I haven’t had an agent like you in fourteen centuries,” she said. “Someone who’s just not scared of me at all. It’s… refreshing, in a way.” She stepped closer and leaned over the sink to inspect Yang’s handiwork. “You’ve mostly got it, but there’s still some yellow around your new ears.”

She picked up the container of hair dye and ran a finger around the inside to wipe up the last bits, then smeared it over each spot of yellow she saw. Yang tried to assist, but finally just set down the mirror and let Salem finish the job, leaning back as directed to dunk her hair and cat ears in the black water. 

“Eve’s telekinesis could probably do this without getting messy,” Salem commented. “But General Ironwood called for her, and she had to go back and maintain her cover as a loyal Special Operative.”

“How does that work? Does he know she’s a Maiden?”

“He does, but not that she works for me. The General has been slowly sidelined within his own kingdom over the last ten years. He has his personal operatives, but the rank and file military and the Dust industry is all under my control. The Council is full of puppets who don’t care what’s really going on as long as the kingdom appears prosperous and strong… and with the Relic of Creation producing more than a dozen factories, it always has been. Until Ozpin arrived, of course, and we had to take the staff to safety.”

Yang made a disgruntled noise and rolled her eyes. “What’s he up to these days?”

“That’s what I wanted to find you about, actually… though I expected you to be in the training room over there. I got a report from Dr Watts, saying that Cinder had been sighted in Atlas, with an accomplice who you may also know. Someone named Neo?”

“Oh no…” 

“Well, you’ll be glad to hear they’re both dead.”

“What?!” Yang twisted to look at Salem and nearly fell from her precarious support on the sink’s edge. Salem motioned for her to stand and she did, carefully backing up as she moved to keep from dripping bits of dye on the floor. 

“They attacked your friends, and Watts had a good view through the kingdom surveillance network. Both Cinder and Neo wanted revenge on your sister, Ruby. They believed with Cinder’s magic they could win seven against two, but they failed to account for Ozpin in addition to his host. The ultimate outcome was that Ruby is now the Fall Maiden.”

“ _ Wha _ –ow!” Yang’s sudden movement jerked her hair in Salem’s hands. “My  _ sister _ is a  _ Maiden _ now?” She leaned back and stared up at the far wall for a while. “We’ve got to get her away from Ozpin. Weiss too.”

“We shall try our best. But of more immediate concern, this changes the plan for Beacon rather dramatically.”

“You don’t seem too concerned about Cinder’s death,” Yang remarked. 

“She stopped reporting in after her failure at Haven. Now we know why. In a way, this may actually make our job easier. Even if Ruby stays on Ozpin’s side, we know how to get her to Vale: simply stage a minor attack there while easing up on Atlas, and she’ll come running. I doubt we’ll even need it, but we could also tip Ozpin off that I’ve found a way around his Maiden lock, to get him racing to beat me with the real key.”

“You’re just going to work with Ruby as the new Fall?” Yang turned around to look in the mirror, now that Salem had squeezed the excess water out of her hair. 

“Of course. It’s possible to fight against Ozpin without harming the rest of his team. Black hair looks good on you, by the way.”

“Thanks! For not hurting my friends. Well, for both, I mean.” Yang glanced down, suddenly a little flustered. “Do you… do anything to yours? It’s white because of the Grimm liquid, right? Do you ever have to, like… redo that?”

Salem shuddered. “Thankfully, no. Of all my suicide attempts, that one was by far the worst. But my hair grows naturally white now. I suppose it’s the equivalent of Grimm spines.”

“It looks cool. That with the black ribbons. Blonde just wouldn’t go as well with the black dress, I think.”

Salem raised one eyebrow. “You know, if I were to be struck with the magic of silver eyes, there is a chance it would burn the Grimm out of me and leave my old self behind. I would have to submerge in the pool again to regain my control over them. Alternatively, it could do something much worse. I’d prefer never to test it.”

“Yeah. You’ve been through enough. Let’s just keep you and Ruby far away from each other.”

“Agreed. I’m glad you’re here, Yang. Now, go let that dry and put a shirt back on. We can plan more about getting your sister to Vale later.”


	5. Chapter 5

Yang’s gentle, hesitant knock on Salem’s door was answered immediately. “Come in!” Salem called, and the door swung open of its own accord before Yang could even push. 

Salem was laying back on her bed, staring up at the dark stone ceiling. For the first time Yang had seen since she arrived, Salem’s hair was down, cascading over the stack of pillows all the way to her waist. A twisted piece of metal sat on the bedside table, wafer-thin aluminum shaped into Salem’s usual hairstyle as a brace, with six thin black ribbons coiled beside it. 

“Welcome, Yang. What is it?”

“I, uh… I wanted to say… thank you, actually.” 

Salem raised one eyebrow but did not move from her spot. 

“It’s been hard for me… missing Blake. But you help. A lot. You know what it’s like.”

Behind her, the door swung back to its mostly shut position again. Salem shuffled a few inches closer to the wall and gestured to a spot beside her, and Yang took the invitation to sit. 

“I do know how it feels to lose one you love,” Salem murmured. “Particularly your first love. It’s not a pain I would wish on anyone… except maybe dear old Oz himself. If he’s even still capable of loving people more than secrets.” She paused, and looked over to meet Yang’s eyes. “But I also know how it feels to slowly recover. And you will, in time.”

“Doesn’t seem like it, sometimes.” Yang sighed and stared down at her feet. “But I suppose you did. Although… I almost feel like I’m the Ozma this time. Blake was always… not imprisoned literally, but she had a shadow over her. Adam. Even after leaving him she was scared, and she was right to be. He came for her at the Fall of Beacon, and I couldn’t save her.” She raised her metal arm and gently curled her fingers. 

“He stalked her through Menagerie, to Haven, to Argus. He attacked again, and that time, we managed to beat him together. Blake was free.” Yang sighed. “We fell deeply in love, planned adventures around the world, and lived happily ever after. Or at least… that’s what should have been.” 

The odd wording caught Salem’s attention. “Is that what the Relic said about me and Ozma?”

Yang nodded. “And then the wrong one of us died. Ozma and I had both been ready to give our lives protecting others countless times, but then we each saw a woman worth living for. And yet… How could the gods let this happen?” She slammed both fists down on the bed and stood up, frowning angrily as she paced back and forth across the small bedroom. “How could  _ Ozma _ let this happen?”

Salem sat up and swung her legs off to the side to sit on the bed’s edge, and she held out a hand to Yang. The girl paused in her pacing and stared, until Salem nodded at the space next to her. Yang let out a long, ragged breath, and tears streamed down her cheeks as she sat. Salem pulled her close, and the pair rested in silence for a while as Yang’s tears slowly dripped onto the black robe over her shoulder. 

A new knock came at the door, and a flick of Salem’s fingers pulled it open from afar. Hazel stood in the doorway, and did a slight double take at the sight. Salem with her hair down was rare enough, but now Yang was leaning on her shoulder with arms wrapped tight around Salem’s waist, no longer actively crying but still with cheeks puffy and red. 

“Eve has been trying to reach you, Your Grace,” he said after only a slight hesitation. “She has instigated a Grimm assault on Vale, as planned.”

“Good.” Salem nodded, and Yang stirred a little but did not move. “Has the news reached our enemies?”

“Eve falsified a report from Goodwitch, and sent it on to Watts. He will make sure they see it and leave Atlas. Shall I let them both know you are indisposed at the moment?”

“That would be best. I can’t currently reach the pocket with my scroll in it.” She gestured down at her side where Yang was still leaning on her, half asleep. “You know how it is when a cat gets on your lap.”

“Understood.” 

Yang blinked her eyes open and started to push away, but Hazel was already gone. Salem pulled her back with an arm around her shoulders. “You don’t have to go,” she said softly. “Everything is being taken care of already.”

“Sorry… I shouldn’t have…”

“It’s okay, Yang. It’s normal to not want to be alone in a time like this. I know how it feels. So does Hazel, though he doesn’t like to talk about it.” 

Yang removed her arms from around Salem, but remained leaning on her shoulder. “He was as much of a mess as I am? I can’t really see it. I’m glad he found you anyway.”

“It was longer for him, between Ozpin letting his sister die and Hazel coming to me. But I sat with him through his share of crying spells too. There’s no shame in needing some company sometimes. I know isolation far too well myself.”

Salem rested her head against Yang’s and smiled. “And I do enjoy having you here, Yang. You specifically. I meant what I said the other day, when you were dyeing your hair. It’s nice to see someone who knows exactly what I’m capable of and isn’t scared.” She let out a slow breath. “Someone who knows all the history that I so rarely find the will to explain, and doesn’t judge me for it.”

“Judge you for it? If anything, knowing that only makes me like you more!” Yang wiped her face dry. “How could anyone not sympathize, seeing so much insult and abuse heaped on you by the gods? You didn’t deserve any of that. The world is better off without them. I like your idea of fairness a lot better than theirs.”

Salem inched a bit closer so that the sides of their legs were pressed together. “You know, Yang, you’re the first person in who knows how long – a couple millennia at least – to really treat me like a  _ friend _ . You don’t care about power or ambition. You’re not here to serve a master or to try to turn my resources toward your own goals. You came to me because you knew we were alike. You specifically wanted a friend… and I think I might have really needed one, too.”

“Well… I do want Ozpin dead too.”

Salem laughed. “Who doesn’t, really? Apparently even his own host is on our side for that one.” She gently ran her fingers through Yang’s hair and the girl stiffened for a moment, unused to the touch where she habitually kept all hands away – but initial shock aside, it was soothing, and Yang smiled as she allowed her friend to continue. 

“I like having someone I can be open with,” Salem continued. “For once. Someone I can just say anything around, and not have to worry about if they already know it or if their opinions might change upon hearing it.”

“And I knew everything already before we met,” Yang finished for her. 

“Exactly. Now, Eve knows as much as you do, but… Well, you’ve met her. Terrifyingly good at her job, but not much for socializing. And there’s no one to blame but myself for creating her that way. I gave her the absolute control she needed, and the perfect information to maintain that control. I’d trust her with my life, if that were a meaningful thing for me. I trust her with the Relic of Creation. But she’s not one to just sit around and chat.”

“So I’ve seen. But if that’s what you want, I’m certainly available. I do kind of miss the rest of my friends, but… I just don’t know if I could face them again right now. I ran away from everyone. Who knows what Ozpin’s been telling them. They could all hate me and I’d never kn…” Yang trailed off, lost in a sudden new thought. “Is this how Blake felt after the Fall of Beacon?”

“That, I couldn’t say. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you and your friends suffered so much that night. Cinder’s only orders were: become the Fall Maiden, cause chaos, and use said chaos to retrieve the Relic of Choice. The details were up to her, and she chose to employ the White Fang.”

“I don’t blame you. I know it was all Cinder.” Yang pulled away from Salem a little, just enough to take the witch’s hand in between their bodies. “It was Cinder who decided to kill Pyrrha when she didn’t have to. And from what I’ve heard from Emerald and Mercury, she also changed plans at the last minute just to kill Penny when she found out she could. I’m glad she’s gone. I don’t know if I could handle being on the same side as her.”

“The new Fall Maiden should be much easier to handle, especially with you by my side. Speaking of which, we should all be preparing for the chaos to come in Vale. You may have to face your old team again, to help direct them where they need to be.”

Yang took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think I can do that. No matter what, I can always come back here to my new team. My new friends.”

Salem smiled at her words, and in a reversal from their earlier positions, laid her head on Yang’s shoulder and closed her eyes. 


	6. Chapter 6

“Last check before we land. Is everyone ready?” 

The tension throughout the airship was palpable. Salem’s entire team was mobilizing at once, their master included, all packed onto a single ship flying into Vale from the northwest. The city was just visible in the distance, lights on the coastline with the island of Patch passing by on their right. Soon its residents would be fighting for their lives against a Grimm invasion that rivaled or even exceeded the Fall of Beacon. 

“We have our missions,” Hazel said. His was with Tyrian, while Yang, Eve, and Salem each had individual tasks. Emerald and Mercury would also be working together as they always did, behind the scenes to bring about the panic they all needed. 

“Does everyone have the devices I gave you?” Salem asked the group. Some patted pockets, others pulled out the strange objects directly. Each was a small rod that fit well in one hand, with a button at one end and another on the side. Salem had created them as mundane objects with the staff, then spent the next two days imbuing each one with a sizable amount of magic. “Good. Keep those where you can reach them, and remember: the side button teleports you where you point, the top button takes you back toward the ship.”

“How many jumps can we expect to get?” Mercury inquired. 

“You’re each carrying about half my magical capacity. That should take you fifteen miles in long jumps, a little less if you do many shorter trips. It’s more than anyone should need tonight. But keep in mind that you can only go about a mile and a quarter at once, the same distance I can jump without one. If you run into Grimm, teleport away rather than killing them.”

“Got it.” Yang moved up to the front window and watched as the shore grew closer. 

“With this flight path, our landing order will be Emerald and Mercury first, then Eve, then me and Yang, and then Tyrian and Hazel land with the ship at Beacon cliff.”

Hazel motioned to Eve to stand up from the pilot’s seat and she did, though the airship’s controls continued to operate even as she turned her back. “I’ll take this from here.”

As soon as the airship crossed over land, flying over the upper class residential district toward the city center, Hazel opened the bay doors. Emerald and Mercury watched from the side and buildings passed by below them, waiting for the landmark of the Council hall to come into view. 

The moment it was close, both leapt from the side of the airship and plunged down toward the city streets. Emerald whirled one gun on its chain and threw it down ahead of her, looping it around a hard-light lamppost. She swung back up beneath it, narrowly missing the pavement, and gradually slowed as she ran up the side of a building until another chain to the building’s balcony could gently bring her to the ground. Mercury, for his part, used the air blasts from his boots to slow himself as he fell, until by the end he could simply roll forward to dissipate the last of his speed. 

Eve was next on the list. Hazel took the group directly over the Council building and Eve calmly walked off the side of the airship bay and continued walking on air as her team flew on without her. Even though she was hovering under the power of Maiden magic, she continued moving her legs as if descending an invisible staircase onto the roof of the city hall. 

It was another minute before Salem and Yang’s turn to leave the airship. Hazel’s course brought them a little south of the straight shot toward Beacon, into the residential district of Vale instead. Salem made no movement to the airship’s central cabin, instead merely holding out a hand to Yang. Instead of taking it in her own, Yang stepped closer so that she and Salem each held the other around the waist, and then both vanished in a flare of yellow light to reappear on the street directly below. 

The airship was empty now except for its pilot and a single passenger. Tyrian leaned over the control panels to press his face almost to the glass, watching the tall cliff face scroll by until Beacon Academy was visible at the top. 

They were so close now. So close to taking a second Relic. So close to dealing Ozpin and his team a crippling blow. So close to drowning his favorite kingdom in fire and blood. 

All they had to do was wait for the signal, and it would all come crashing down. 

* * *

Salem vanished from the Vale street only a moment after she’d arrived, leaving Yang behind with only the phantom feeling of her touch. She was headed further to the southeast, just outside the city walls, where a story from Yang’s school days had told her she might find some powerful allies. There was some time before the Fall Maiden would get to the vault, after all. She could spare a few minutes to…  _ encourage _ this herd of ancient goliaths to make a move now rather than later. 

Meanwhile, Yang walked down the sidewalk, on her way to the house that Salem had told her belonged to Ozpin under an alias. But judging from the address numbers she was passing, she still had a ways to go before reaching 391 Khamos Street. 

She pulled out her scroll and opened her text messages to a contact she hadn’t been able to reach since leaving here a year ago in search of her mother and sister. So much had changed since then. He hadn’t said she was ready, but of course that hadn’t stopped her. 

“Stay home. TV off. Lots of Grimm incoming.” Her finger hovered over the send button. It wasn’t betraying her mission to give her own father a warning, was it? He’d probably be fine anyway, but… No, of course it would be okay. She’s telling him to stay home, keeping one more Huntsman away from the action. Besides, Salem couldn’t fault her for caring about her family, not when she herself was already arranging things to protect Yang’s sister from direct harm. 

She sent the message. In moments a response came back, happy to see her signal but at the same time frantic with worry over her message. “Yang! What’s going on? Did you find Ruby?”

“She’s here too, with friends,” Yang texted back. “Fall of Beacon 2.0 coming in minutes. Stay safe.” An indicator that Tai was typing appeared on Yang’s screen, but she ignored it and kept going before he could ask too many questions. “Your team was Ozpin’s favorite before mine, right? You know what Qrow knows? About the crown at Beacon?”

The typing indicator disappeared, and then a short message came in a moment later. “You know?”

“Ruby is the new Fall.” Yang got the magical news out of the way quickly. “She needs to get to the vault. I’ll be fighting around the city. I know Patch can count on you. Good luck.” And with that, she silenced her scroll and returned it to her pocket. 

Just in time to see what had to be Ozpin’s safehouse ahead of her. Yang checked the address one more time and walked up the front steps to knock hard on the door. 

Jaune opened the door and did a double take as Yang brushed past him into the house. She called out as she entered the living room just to the right, “Hi everyone, Yang here, good to see you all again, you need to get to Beacon right this minute!”

Her friends rushed in at the sound and gathered around the room, each one also startling slightly at Yang’s new appearance. Ruby tackled her sister into a hug and Yang returned the gesture, but only briefly. 

A chorus of voices battered her ears. “Yang! You’re alive! Where were you? What happened to you? Are those cat ears? How did you find us? Where have you been? We missed you so much!”

Yang smiled, but brushed them off. “I’m glad you’ve all been safe,” she said. “But you’re here because you got tipped off about Salem’s plans in the area. Right? I’ve heard the same thing.”

“Professor Goodwitch sent a letter.” Jaune had no idea it was a forgery, and it seemed he hadn’t yet questioned how a letter got to them through the closed borders of Atlas. 

“She said Vale had been attacked,” Ruby continued for him. “It was Salem’s doing, because she wanted the Beacon Relic. Professor Goodwitch thinks Salem can bypass the vault door with her own magic!”

“She can,” Yang lied. “You need to get there first. You don’t have much time. Turn on the TV.”

Nora grabbed the remote and clicked the TV on, where it showed two seconds of a sports game before it flickered red and the icon of a black queen chess piece filled the screen. 

“Correction, you don’t have  _ any _ time.” It seemed Emerald and Mercury had done their job, delivering a copy of the same virus Cinder had used during the Fall of Beacon. Everyone in Vale would be seeing this same message on every channel. 

The red screen flickered again and changed to a view of the Vale Council chamber. Four of the five seats were occupied: Vale’s military general and the three elected Council members, though the seat reserved for Headmistress Goodwitch was empty. All four of them looked terrified, and squirmed in their seats as if pinned there by an invisible force. 

“These are your leaders. These are the men and women in whom you have placed your trust. The people you think will keep you safe. Look at them, quaking in their boots.” It was Eve’s voice, but she stayed behind whatever camera she had brought. 

Ruby and her friends exchanged worried glances as Eve’s speech continued. “You think you’re invincible behind your massive walls, in the shadow of your Academy. You’re not. You’ve never been safe in the ways that matter. You think yourselves masters of your own destiny, but your crown of glory is naught but an illusion. You have no  _ choice _ but to act as you are meant to.”

“And when the storm clouds gather, some may think to carry a lamp to brave the darkness. Take heed, citizens… for any light you shine only makes the shadows grow longer. When it flickers and dies, you will have no one to blame for your blindness but yourselves.”

Before their eyes, the leftmost member of the Vale Council suddenly struggled to breathe. His face flushed red with strain and his arms twitched before being thrust back to his sides again, and a trickle of blood escaped his nose. 

“Is she talking to us?” Ruby asked aloud. “She mentioned a lamp as well as a crown.”

“Salem knows we’re in Vale.” Ren looked scared, and moved a step closer to his teammates. 

The execution being shown to all the kingdom did not pause. “These are your leaders,” Eve declared again. “These are the people you chose to represent you. Watch as they fall one by one, helpless in the face of a superior force. This Council  _ does _ represent you, and that is a threat.”

The next Council member glanced frantically at her neighbor, now slumped in his chair with eyes closed and blood running from his ears as well. But the magic pinning her in place also stifled her cries and those of her fellows as she too found herself under attack from inside her own body. 

Ozpin’s voice came from behind and Yang whirled around to face him. “We took her bait,” he warned. “She wanted us here. She’s always a step ahead.”

_ “Maybe because she has a plan and you don’t,”  _ Yang wanted to say, but managed to hold her tongue. She settled for a deathly glare instead and turned back to the TV just as the second Council member’s struggles ceased and Eve began her monologue anew. 

“How do you survive against an enemy you can’t see coming? As a person who hails from Atlas, I can tell you that even the great General’s paranoia only makes him look a fool, while his kingdom is ravaged from inside and out. And if the greatest kingdom in the world is so weak, what hope do you think  _ you _ have?”

“You built this kingdom enclosed by natural barriers: mountains to the east and shallow waters to the west. You thought it would keep you safe. You thought it a suit of armor against the Grimm. But all you’ve done is build a golden birdcage, and you locked yourselves within. What happens when the cat gets inside the bars? What happens if it’s  _ been _ inside the whole time?”

A third member of the Council fell victim to Eve’s invisible assaults. The last sat in heightened terror, knowing full well his time was short, but unable to move his own muscles to fight back. 

“You built your tomb, people of Vale. When you found yourselves in a dark cave you lit a bonfire for light and comfort, and now the air is running thin. The coffin’s lid is sliding shut. Will you run? Will you fight? Will you beat your fists against the walls and cry out for help that will never come?”

“It doesn’t matter. Your fate is sealed. Your throne of lies is crumbling and the mad king’s crown slips from your grasp.”

And just like that, the last of the Vale Council’s lives was snuffed out. Only the absent Headmistress survived, the one whose duties rarely allowed her to be in the same room as the others. She was surely watching from her office, spreading the same fear as her people, calling to the Grimm. 

It didn’t bother Eve or her master that one was left alive. That was to be expected, and even welcomed. After all, a single leader stressed to the point of breaking has always done more damage to a kingdom than a clean wipe of everyone in power. 

“Look,” Eve commanded, puppeting the four bodies to stand and bow to the camera. “These were your leaders. These were the men and women you trusted to protect you. See what a failure they’ve been, and  _ know _ that the game is not yet over.” 

The Council’s bodies dropped like forgotten playthings and thudded on table and chairs on their way to crumple on the floor, out of view of the camera. 

“Through all your agony, remember that this is  _ not _ your final loss. Tonight merely evens the score. And in the ashes of tomorrow, we begin again.” The TV screen flickered briefly back to the red background and black queen chess piece, and then the broadcast stopped. 

Nora pressed some buttons on the remote, but there was only static on every channel now. All communications were jammed – not offline as long as the local CCT still stood, but blasted over with noise by the virus Emerald and Mercury had uploaded to the network. Finally she just turned the TV off and looked helplessly to her team. 

“Glynda was right. She  _ is _ going for the Relic.” Weiss picked up her sword off the team’s weapon rack and spun its Dust canisters nervously. “The mad king’s crown… that’s got to be a message. She’s taunting us.”

“That was not Salem’s voice,” Ozpin said. “Which is even worse. She has someone we haven’t met.”

Yang turned to glare at him again, interrupting her old team’s musings about just how badly they’d all been tricked. “Would I be correct in assuming this is Ozma I’m speaking to?”

“I don’t use that name anymore.”

“That would be a yes. Is Oscar still available? May I speak to him?”

“Anything said to me is said to him. Nobody is ever gone from this collective.”

“We haven’t seen him in weeks,” Jaune supplied. “Barely at all since you disappeared.”

Ozpin took a tighter grip on his cane and stared at Yang with a grim expression. “Due to the unprecedented stress on our system and the necessity of cooperation, we were forced to accelerate the integration process.”

Yang took a deep breath and forced her hands not to curl into fists. She closed her eyes and took another breath, and when they reopened she spoke in an icy voice, “Your enemies have killed  _ one _ of my friends, and I would place that blame far heavier on Cinder’s head than on Salem’s. But you, Ozma… you’ve now murdered  _ two _ of my friends, much more directly.”

Yang lashed out with a swift left hook, gauntlet unfolding as she moved. Her fist connected squarely with Ozpin’s face and her weapon propelled an explosive Dust bullet into him for extra impact. Ozpin flew back into the side of the stairs and lay there, stunned, as Yang stalked toward him. 

“I have nothing more to say to  _ you _ ,” she spat, and turned back to her shocked friends behind. “Ruby, get to the vault! Juniper, fight Grimm. There’s going to be a lot of them tonight.” She paused, fuming. “And all of you, find someone better to work for than Oz.”

Yang took two steps to the side and put one hand on the doorknob of the bathroom beneath the stairs, the other in her pocket where Salem’s teleportation device rested. “Sorry we couldn’t catch up more, but I’ve got to go. There are other things to take care of tonight.”

She slipped inside without bothering to switch on the light and pulled the door behind her. The bottom struck her heel and the door bounced back without latching, and slowly swung open again for Ruby and her team to see inside. But despite it being an enclosed, windowless room, no trace remained of their visitor. 


	7. Chapter 7

With Team RWBY missing half its members, there was much less opportunity now for confusion between a team name and a person. The bees were gone, and the two remaining girls would make their enemies  _ rue _ the day they tried to hurt them any further. Or, turned the other way, their initials became their purpose: to fight and win this eternal  _ war. _ But two people does not make a team, and so tonight at least, another two had joined them. 

Just their bad luck the same problem would arise again in Team QROW. 

Qrow, Ruby, Ozpin, and Weiss ran from their borrowed airship down the main avenue of Beacon. Already the sky was filled with dark figures, land Grimm as well encroaching from the east, and the Beacon grounds were filled with teams and professors doing their best to defend their wounded school. 

Qrow’s head spun with everything he had just seen. His niece was alive – that was great news, but she hardly seemed like herself. Yang dyed her hair? The girl he knew would never. And those cat ears didn’t look like fakes on a headband… But Yang’s appearance was the least of what bothered him. 

The way she had been so… not  _ cold _ , but straight down to business… and what terrible business it was! If she had warned them sooner they might have been able to save the Council. And assaulting Ozpin – well, they all had reason to dislike him, but he was still the best option they had for stopping Salem. Yang had certainly kept up the fight on her own though, that much was certain. 

Unless… no, she couldn’t possibly have gone over to the dark side. Qrow knew there was probably more to the story of Blake’s death than Oz had given them – that was to be expected by now. Yang punching his lights out only reinforced that. Qrow resolved to put some pressure on the old man later, once things had calmed down a little. But Yang serving the enemy? That was unthinkable. 

Ruby and Weiss had to be thinking the same things. Their teammate was back! Well, not  _ back _ . But she was alive! And maybe she’d return after the chaos. She clearly had information they didn’t about Salem’s plans for this night. Qrow could only hope she knew what she was doing and that she’d stay safe on whatever path she chose. 

As the group approached the large statue of two Huntsmen standing over a Grimm, two flashes of pale golden light appeared in their path and grew into a pair of silhouettes. A man with a long barbed tail, and a giant armed only with his fists. There was no mistaking their identities, even before the yellow light faded. 

“Oh no… Could our luck get any worse?” Qrow reluctantly unholstered his greatsword, teammates doing the same as they slowed to confront their foes. 

“Ozpin…” Hazel growled at the boy in the rear of the group. “You’re not going another step.”

Next to him, Tyrian grinned and tapped his fingertips together. “Nor are you, Qrow Branwen. I do believe we have some, er… unfinished business, wouldn’t you say?”

“Tyrian,” Qrow and Ruby said at the same time. 

“Oh, don’t you worry, little girl…” Tyrian leaned forward to smirk at Ruby. “I’m still under orders not to harm you. Our Goddess wants you alive. You too, Ice Queen, though I can’t imagine why.”

“Why does  _ everybody _ call me that?” 

“Go,” Hazel commanded, holding one hand over Tyrian’s mouth while pointing around the statue with the other. “We have no quarrel with you two. I’m sure  _ Ozpin _ can handle himself.”

“Get to the vault,” Ozpin commanded. “Follow the broken symmetry. I’ll catch up with you shortly.”

Hazel stared him down. “You’ll have to go through me.” 

“Then I will.” Ozpin raised his cane to a combat stance in one hand. He gestured again to Ruby and Weiss, and then his empty hand shimmered with a dark green glow. 

The two girls finally turned and ran past Hazel toward their original goal. The giant merely watched them go in peace, and cracked his knuckles as he looked back to Oz. He thrust his hands into his pockets and came up with Dust crystals in orange and violet. The colors went separately into his right and left biceps. 

Qrow was the first to attack, charging in with a yell to swing his sword at Tyrian. The scorpion man deflected it with his metal tail and left the stinger hovering in front of Qrow’s face a moment longer than he needed to, as if taunting him merely by its presence. 

Next to him, Hazel roared and swiped forward with his left hand. Ozpin was still closing in, not even in range to attack yet, but the gravity Dust in Hazel’s arm triggered to throw a wave of force that knocked Ozpin back. He tumbled in the air and struck the pavement once, but then came to a stop in the air and righted himself before gently dropping back to his feet. 

Hazel charged forward, passing by Qrow and Tyrian as they exchanged lightning-fast blows, and slammed his right hand down on the ground. The cobblestones cracked in all directions and a spurt of lava shot forward to cover the ground. Ozpin leapt to the side and rolled to avoid it, and as he recovered he threw out his empty hand toward Hazel. 

A beam of brilliant green shot out to strike him in the chest, and Hazel roared again. “Using  _ magic _ to help you now? Flaunting your superiority over the rest of us? It won’t be enough!”

Nearby, Tyrian flipped away from Qrow and made a show of folding down his wrist-mounted blades on one side. “The old man’s fighting one-handed? Well, he’s not the only one with a few extra tricks…” His eyes lost their usual yellow coloring and became the same purple as the venom in his stinger. 

Qrow only scowled and pressed the fight onward, aiming his strikes toward Tyrian’s less guarded left side to keep him on the defensive. So long as his attention was occupied with artful flips and dodges, he would not be using that deadly Semblance of his to smear streaks of vulnerability across Qrow or Oz. 

Hazel, fed up with the barrage of magic bolts from a distance, finally decided to swap out his Dust for a new type. Out came the purple crystals from his left arm, and a handful of turquoise ones were jabbed into the same wounds. The gravity Dust went into his thighs instead, sacrificing the ability to throw Ozpin off balance but granting Hazel vastly better mobility instead. 

The next time Ozpin charged a ball of deep emerald fire in his empty hand, Hazel elected not to dodge but rather charged closer. The magical projectile was let loose, and he merely held up his left hand in its path. From the crystals to his fingertips, his skin was covered in a sheen of hard-light Dust, forming a perfect shield to block attacks of any sort. Hazel felt no pain and his natural Aura regeneration was unusually fast, but with magic anything was possible. Better not to test his limits. 

The gambit paid off in Ozpin’s surprise. A swift uppercut with a lava Dust infused fist sent the startled wizard flying, but he landed on his hands and flipped gracefully back upright. Hazel continued his movement to rush him down, but Ozpin managed to evade the kick coming for him and strike at the back of Hazel’s legs. 

Bullets struck Hazel’s back, shots from Qrow that missed their intended target as Tyrian danced around. The giant turned and cast a glob of sticky fire toward Qrow, which splashed on the pavement and lingered, fading slowly from orange to red to black. 

“What’s going on here?” A brash voice called from the side, drawing some of the combatants’ attention. A tall boy in armor emblazoned with a bird stood with a heavy flanged mace over his shoulder, with a blue-haired teammate hanging behind him with a halberd. 

“None of your business, kids!” Qrow called back. “You want to be useful, go fight the Grimm!”

Tyrian took advantage of his distraction to plant a foot on Qrow’s face and push off, performing a neat handspring which ended in a deep backward lean. Looking upside down at the newcomers, he beckoned them closer with a finger before straightening up again. “Do join in… You’ll make this  _ so _ much more fun.”

“Stay back!” Hazel and Ozpin called together, then glanced at each other with offended looks on their faces. 

But Cardin and Sky were already holding their weapons ready, and Qrow could see in their eyes there was no discouraging them. “Fine, do what you like,” he said. “These men are partially responsible for the attack tonight.”

Cardin smirked at his teammate. “Hear that? We’ll be heroes.” He hefted his mace and charged in with an overhead swing at Tyrian. 

The weapon clanged on the ground harmlessly as Tyrian deftly sidestepped his attack. He jumped to place one foot on the mace just behind its head and pushed off to plant his empty hand over Cardin’s face. His fingers left a wide streak of burnt orange glow as he flipped over the student’s head, a lingering region of vulnerability where Aura had been pushed away. 

While his teammate reeled in shock, Sky sliced at the attacker with his halberd, with Qrow following up on Tyrian’s other side. Cardin took one glance back at them and went for Hazel instead, only to be kicked back with the force of gravity Dust and crash against the base of the statue. 

Ozpin took his chance to close in beneath Hazel’s hard-light guard, and activated one of his most useful Semblances. His form shimmered and shed outlines of green, copies of himself spread across a dozen potential futures, each taking a separate line of attack which shifted back to the present in an unstoppable flurry of jabs of a spectral cane. 

The giant stumbled back, off balance, and fell against the pedestal behind him with only his right arm to break his fall. The lava Dust infusing his veins activated automatically upon the impact, melting the stone of the beowulf’s legs. The statue’s upper half tilted forward and Hazel raised his other arm to shield himself. 

Cardin was not nearly so lucky to have a ready protection from the mass of stone coming down on him. He looked up in horror and held his mace over his head as if to block with its shaft, but even a strong student with a solid weapon like him would have little success in avoiding damage. 

“This is why you shouldn’t be here!” came a call from behind him, and suddenly Cardin felt a hand grab his shoulder. His stomach flipped and a wave of nausea came over him, and he found himself in flight, unable to feel his own body even as his viewpoint skimmed low over the cobblestones and circled around behind the Grimm statue. 

Qrow transformed back and dropped his passenger just outside the active fighting, and didn’t even look back as he engaged Tyrian again. Sky was on the ground, overpowered so easily despite all his initial confidence, and Qrow had to almost tackle his opponent to stop him plunging a venom-filled tail into the blue-edged region of nullified Aura on the boy’s unarmored neck. 

“What the hell was that?” Cardin called from behind him, slowly standing up after shaking off the last of the nausea. “Who are you people?”

“The kid there is Professor Ozpin’s son,” Qrow called back. “I’m your classmate Yang Xiao Long’s uncle, and a walking bad luck charm!”

“We can handle this,” Ozpin yelled over to them as he leaped backward away from a slam of Hazel’s fist. “Sometimes the most heroic act is to retreat! There will be other battles for you, but only if you survive to fight them!” 

The students watched as Hazel jumped into the air, helped by gravity Dust to fly far higher than he should be able to, and crashed down again with one fist over the other. Hard light shielding acted as a hammer to smash his other hand into the ground, and the orange Dust within exploded outward in a massive splash of lava that buckled the street in all directions. 

Ozpin hovered in the air with a green glow around his ankles, and rained down sparks of magic on Hazel’s head and back. Qrow grabbed Sky around the waist and heaved him out of the way, taking a stab from Tyrian’s claw blades in the process, and then morphed into a bird for a few seconds until the ground had cooled. The two members of Team CRDL exchanged another look between them, and together turned tail and fled. 

* * *

“Follow the broken symmetry…” Weiss grumbled as she and her partner studied the floor at one of the nearly identical intersections in the Beacon vault. Wide green-lit halls stretched out in four directions, just as they had at every corner they’d come to before, seemingly endless despite the impossibility of such a construction. “Why couldn’t he have just said ‘at the first corner turn left’ and so on?”

“Can’t let Tyrian and Hazel follow us, I guess,” Ruby replied. “Or worse, let them report so  _ she _ can follow us. Come on, it’s this way.”

“Do you really think she can open it herself?” Weiss asked as she followed Ruby through another dim hall. 

“It’s what Glynda said, and Yang too. We can’t be too careful. I’ll take the Relic now, we hold onto it until Vale is safe, and then we can figure out a better hiding place.”

“I suppose it makes more sense not to have it with us.” Weiss sighed. “But… Yang…”

“I’m happy she’s alive. That more than anything.” Ruby fell silent for a moment. “I can tell she’s hurt and I wish she’d stay with us, but… at least she’s safe.”

“Yeah… It sounded like she blamed Ozpin for… for Blake. You don’t think he’d lie to us about something like  _ that _ , right?”

“I don’t even know anymore. I don’t like what he did to Oscar.” Ruby put a hand on the blue lamp hanging from her belt. “It looks like Yang has been fighting on her own. When this is over we need to get answers, and we should be prepared to join Yang rather than bring her back with us and Oz.”

The pair came to the next intersection and Weiss immediately looked to the floor, but Ruby touched her shoulder and pointed off to their right. Instead of the usual endless hall, this path led to an end, barely visible in the candlelight but already looking like a gigantic door. The pair hurried down the final stretch and came to stand before it. 

It was even bigger than it had seemed, now that they saw it up close. 

“Choice…” Ruby murmured, staring up at the gently curving lines etched into the door. “Follow a path into light or dark.” She pointed at the bottom center and traced an arc up and to the right, into the golden half of the door. 

“It’s beautiful.” Weiss too was in awe, and took a few steps back to better appreciate the massive carving. 

“Pick a side and stay on it, unless… Not many paths lead back across the middle, but they exist. And they go both ways. Redemption from evil… or a hero’s fall. Every possible choice.”

Weiss stood just a moment longer, then returned to Ruby’s side. “Well, go ahead and open it, I guess.”

Ruby walked forward and stood just inches from the center. “I choose light.” She placed a hand on the golden right side of the door and her eyes lit up involuntarily with the orange flame of the Fall Maiden powers. 

From the point beneath her hand, green light traced over the channels etched into the door, branching upward along every path. Ruby took her hand away and stepped back to watch just as the color found one of the backward arcs, but as it spread into the central line it did not continue across into the midnight blue on the left. 

Starting at the bottom corner, the substance of the door folded in on itself. Each nearly parallel arc slid underneath its neighbor in a cascade that rushed up the face of the door, leaving only a blank white void in its wake. When it was finished and the door stood still once again, only the central channel and the left side remained. The part the Fall Maiden had touched was simply gone, and no world stood beyond. 

Ruby and Weiss looked at each other, then back to the door. “Is that… supposed to happen?” They moved closer and peered through the opening, but nothing but white could be seen no matter which way they looked. 

The clack of high heels on the tile of the vault floor alerted them and both girls spun around to see Headmistress Goodwitch hurriedly approaching with her weapon in hand. Ruby was quick to put her hands up by her shoulders in a display of peace, and Weiss soon followed. 

“Miss Rose! Miss Schnee! I had no idea you were here as well! What’s going on? What… what did you do?”

“I, um. Opened the vault? Maybe?” Ruby glanced back at the blank white half of the door. “It’s supposed to open to the Fall Maiden, right?” She closed her eyes for a moment, and then reopened them with a rim of orange flame. 

“You’re the Fall Maiden? But… that means…”

“Cinder is dead.” Ruby nodded firmly. “She followed us to Haven and then to Atlas. But when she attacked us there, she only had one person with her, not a whole team of Salem’s agents. We were ready for her.”

“Well, that’s one piece of good news tonight. Yang told me that you and Ozpin were in Atlas. Is he here now as well? You’ll need him to get at the Relic.”

Glynda’s last statement went unremarked upon as the two girls fixated on the mention of their teammate. “You talked to Yang?” Weiss asked. “When? We just saw her again right before all this started.”

“A couple weeks ago, maybe? Why? I thought Ozpin sent her and that big man to make sure Beacon was safe. I told them Cinder hadn’t been seen and sent them back to you in Atlas.”

“That’s… not what he told us…” Ruby’s eyes narrowed. “Yang disappeared after–” She let out the rest of her breath and looked down, unable to meet her old professor’s eyes any longer. 

Weiss put a hand on her partner’s shoulder. “Blake Belladonna is dead,” she explained. Ruby turned toward her and Weiss pulled her into a tight hug. “It was a scouting mission gone wrong. Blake got trapped and no one could get to her in time. Ever since then we haven’t seen Yang either, except when she came back just tonight.”

“I’m so sorry. But…” Glynda trailed off, lost in thought. Something wasn’t right about all this. “Wait, was her trip to Vale  _ before _ that, or…?” 

Ruby pulled herself out of Weiss’s embrace and turned to face Glynda again. “We didn’t send her. Yang’s been keeping up the fight with some other group. When we saw her tonight, she seemed to blame Ozpin for what happened. She told us all to leave him.” She neglected to say  _ And we just might. _

Glynda shook her head. “Ozpin has his difficult moments, but he’s the only hope we have. Particularly here.” She pointed behind Ruby and Weiss at the vault door. “He needs to be here to open the other side. Are you sure about taking the crown out, though? It should be safe in there.”

“But you said… In your letter, you told us you thought Salem could bypass it with her own magic. That’s why we came to Vale. To get the Relic before she could.”

“I never sent any letter. I thought Yang was reporting to you in Atlas. What’s going on here? Can she really do that?”

“We don’t know! None of this makes any sense!” Ruby shrugged helplessly. “Oz and Uncle Qrow were with us, but they got stopped up above. Tyrian and Hazel were waiting for us. Maybe we should go back and help them fight?”

Glynda nodded. “If she really can take the Relic, then we need Ozpin down here as soon as possible. Please, bring him here at once. I’ll stay and guard the vault, just in case.”

“Alright. We’ll be back soon.” Ruby and Weiss glanced at each other one last time, then set off back toward the elevator. 


	8. Chapter 8

The goliaths had been very stubborn. It wasn’t hard to find them, of course. From her vantage point on the roof of an abandoned skyscraper in Mountain Glenn, Salem had seen the entire herd wandering closer, drawn by the sudden panic throughout the city of Vale. But Grimm hundreds of years old had seen attacks before, even ones of this scale. They still needed a little push to take the risk of storming the walls. 

Of course Salem could give them that push. Standing atop one mammoth’s back, she had commanded it to run – though the old gate to Mountain Glenn was long since closed, it was still a weak point in the city wall. It had taken some effort, but eventually the herd’s instincts took over in a stampede, and Salem watched from a distance on the back of a single one that she had separated out from the rest. 

It had taken her a little longer than she had hoped to direct that goliath up around the side of Beacon cliff, but once she was confident it was on its way a simple teleport took her ahead to the school itself. 

Not that Beacon really needed another monster, it seemed. The campus was positively  _ swarming _ with beowulves from the eastern woods, with a sizable complement of griffons as well and more than a few larger Grimm. Salem walked between them unbothered, simultaneously a human enemy and one of their own. 

The tower’s front doors were unlocked. School was in session, such as it was. It had been a simple task to walk in, find the elevator, and apply Hazel’s partial knowledge of the passcode he’d seen to figure out the requisite word was ‘Fall’. The Maiden who had preceded her into the vault, who with luck would provide her half of the key and then leave empty-handed. 

Leaving, it seemed, was taking a while. Salem waited impatiently just around the corner while the Maiden and her girlfriend talked to their professor. She could feel the weight of invisibility draining her magic and had to force herself not to pace back and forth in the side hallway, for the sound of her feet might alert someone to her presence. 

Finally Ruby and Weiss came back from the door and rounded the corner away from her… but Glynda remained behind. Well, she wouldn’t be too much trouble, at least. And since Yang had never mentioned her aside from in her mission report, Salem could assume there was no particular fondness there like that for her old teammates. She waited until Ruby and Weiss had disappeared around the next corner in the distance, and then counted out a minute further before dropping the strenuous spell and catching her breath. 

Salem stepped out from the cross hallway and approached the vault and its single guardian. Glynda was peering out into the whiteness and tentatively placed her little finger across the boundary, followed by her whole hand once she saw that no harm had come to her. 

Only when Salem had crossed half the distance did Glynda hear her soft footsteps on the tile and whirl around. Seeing someone unfamiliar, not the two girls returning so soon, she raised her wand and took up a guard position in front of the door. 

Salem called out to her before Glynda could have the first word. “Headmistress Goodwitch,” she addressed her foe, “Shouldn’t you be upstairs, defending your students? Stand aside. The Relic will be safe with me.”

Glynda’s eyes opened wide as she realized who had come to face her. “Salem…”

“Indeed.” Salem smiled as she approached, both hands still down by her side despite the threatening posture of the faux witch before her. “Let’s not make this difficult, now. All I want is the crown, and then I’ll be on my way.”

“Not a chance.” Glynda thrust her wand forward and a ball of violet light flew from its tip. 

Salem’s hand snapped up in an instant to catch the light, and she looked down at it for a moment. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this looks like magic. You do this with a telekinesis Semblance?” She cast the purple orb off to the side where it splashed against the far wall. 

“Particles in the air,” Glynda hissed. “The energy that binds them can be just as effective as the impact of an object.” She cast bolt after bolt, but all were deflected by a mere wave of Salem’s hand. 

Salem came to a stop just feet in front of Glynda. “Aren’t you curious how I intend to get to the Relic?” she asked. “Seeing as you believe the door requires both the Fall Maiden and your precious Ozpin.”

There was no response, only a terrified look as Glynda took a half step back and desperately swung her wand again. Salem staggered under the force of a violet whip, then gestured sharply to the side to throw Glynda with her own version of telekinesis. 

She strode up to the vault door’s face. “Watch!” she proclaimed. “I need not bypass the lock when I too hold a key! The one who gave the Maidens their power is here, and  _ it’s not Oz. _ ”

Salem planted one palm flat against the left side of the door, and immediately streaks of green spread upward across the blue. The arcs folded in on themselves from the bottom corner just as the other side had, until there was nothing remaining except the central column with blankness to both sides. 

The narrow green line brightened, glowing with its own radiance now instead of merely reflecting the light in the halls, and suddenly it flashed to purest white. Both Salem and Glynda covered their eyes, but only for a second as their attentions were captivated by the magical door. Inside that narrow strip a bit of yellow could be seen near the bottom, and as the column widened and its borders swept out across the width of the portal, it opened onto a vast sandy expanse under a featureless blank sky. 

“W-what? How did you…” Glynda could barely form words in her shock. 

Salem ignored her as she stepped out of Remnant and crossed the yards of sand to where an emerald-studded crown floated over a short pedestal of stone. The instant her fingers curled around it, she could sense the magic within. It felt different from the staff – where Creation gave a sense of power and exhilaration to hold, Choice was a melancholy sort, filled with uncertainty and regret. 

Salem shook her head and focused. There was nothing to regret here, not when her most coveted goal had just been achieved. She kept the crown in hand rather than setting it on her head, and exited the otherworldly space with only a slight shudder to mark her return to the normal world. 

“Give Ruby my thanks, when next you see her,” Salem said. “She played her part admirably. Even opposing me, she’s been more help than Cinder ever was.”

“I  _ won’t _ let you get away with this!” Another barrage of violet light sprayed from Glynda’s wand, only to dissipate harmlessly as Salem raised a magic barrier in front of her palm. 

“How do you plan to stop me?” Salem inquired. “You’ve already failed. Just cut your losses and go save what few lives you can.” She pointed up at the high ceiling and the Grimm-infested school grounds beyond. 

Glynda hesitated, but her conviction in her mission was strong. “You’re not leaving except over my dead body.” Knowing her Semblance could not harm Salem, she opted to stow her weapon and rush the witch physically instead, aiming to snatch the Relic from her grasp. 

“What if I don’t  _ want _ your dead body?” Salem asked as she sidestepped the other woman’s charge. Another shove of her magic-infused hand sent Glynda tumbling to the floor. “What if Ruby Rose isn’t the only enemy who’s more useful to me alive?  _ Somebody _ needs to pick up the pieces of this kingdom now that I’m done with it. And, as the only living member of the Council…” 

Glynda stood up again, seething with rage. She waved her wand at the crown, trying to pull it out of Salem’s grip, but the tendrils of force put out by her Semblance seemed almost to slip around it without gaining traction. 

Salem could feel a slight telekinetic tug on her hand, even as the Relic stayed firmly clasped in her fingers. “That’s enough, now,” she chastised. “My business here is done. But I do wish to say thank you, Headmistress, for showing such hospitality to my spies.” 

In a flash of pale yellow, she was gone. 

Salem reappeared high above the Beacon campus, having overestimated her teleport range just for safety, and quickly channeled magic into levitation to stop her fall. She came to rest on a rooftop and took out her scroll, opening a group message to all of her agents in the area. 

“Mission complete. Return at your earliest convenience.”

In the distance, plumes of smoke rose over the cliff edge. Salem teleported closer, landing at the airship pad, and gazed out over the city of Vale. The southern wall had been breached just as she instructed, and the industrial sector was overrun. The canal between there and the primary residential area held back most of the land-based Grimm, but that only meant the citizens were terrorized from above instead. And far out on the coastline,  _ something _ had torn down a whole shipping yard full of cranes before being beaten back into the sea. 

Emerald and Mercury were the first to arrive, appearing together only seconds apart. Mercury gave a nod of respect when he saw Salem already waiting at the side of the ship, but Emerald only stepped over to the edge of the pad to look out over the city. Even as Eve materialized behind her and joined the group, she stayed transfixed by the sight of entire swathes of the city in flames. 

Before her eyes, an explosion rocked a distant factory. Some industry in the southwest of the city, helpless against the goliaths and all those lesser Grimm that came with them. And when there were no more people to attack but the atmosphere of terror still remained, Grimm would tear at buildings and equipment, causing more damage than even the most skilled saboteur. 

Had anyone gotten out in time? Had the workers evacuated and gotten to shelter? Probably not. Emerald didn’t know anyone in Vale, didn’t care about any of the students she had once been acquainted with at Beacon… but there must be so many who were not surviving the sudden blitz. Far be from Emerald’s usual state of mind to care about random suckers who had never done anything for her, but… she couldn’t shake the feeling that this might be taking things a little too far. 

* * *

A nevermore swooped low over Beacon Academy. Through beady red eyes it scouted for targets, seeking any lone humans or Faunus it could snatch up and kill, any dense crowds into which to throw down showers of razor-sharp feathers… With the intelligence it had developed with age, even targets that strayed too close to the clifftop were available, as this Grimm had seen gravity kill its foes before and knew it might leverage the same to help it now. 

There was mortal fear over all the land, almost blinding in its radiance, tempting the Grimm to land anywhere and begin a rampage. But by now it knew that such recklessness got Grimm killed, and besides, fear was not the only taste that urged it onward. The anguish of teams who had lost a member, of friends and classmates seeing their fellows fall before them… The pervasive worry of those who were still in one piece, but only barely… The confusion of the citizens wondering why them, why now, why this? 

And that one curious spark that called to the nevermore from near the cliff’s edge. It had always been buried beneath the tower for as long as this great bird had been in the region, but now it was above ground. What was it? Why did it seem almost  _ familiar _ , not in the way other Grimm were but like a cousin to them, the product of an equal but opposite source? The speck was alive, it felt regret and solemnity, even those horrid, ugly emotions like wonder and hope, but it was not a human. 

The nevermore flew closer to inspect the scene. Three humans, one Faunus, and one of their flying contraptions imprinted with layered echoes of hatred and fear. The odd, compelling speck was… wait, four humans. One was holding it. With its limited normal vision the nevermore registered mostly black with bits of white, with bone-like spines on the human’s upper arms and further spikes framing its head… This one might have been confused for a fellow Grimm, if not for the disgusting aura of pure  _ joy _ and  _ excitement _ and  _ triumph _ that it spewed in all directions. 

Maybe the one in green, standing right by the edge, could be a mark. The nevermore brought its talons into ready position and angled its wings to glide downward, but at the last second before it gripped its hapless prey tight, invisible forces yanked the green human backward and gave the Grimm a shove. It screeched indignantly and dropped below the cliff for a moment to right itself before swooping back up for another pass. 

The human that looked like a Grimm raised one hand. It was in front of the green one and the others now, blocking the nevermore’s approach. Suddenly the Grimm’s vision blurred and shifted, and no targets registered in its simple mind beyond the background saturation of fear. It glided onward, in search of new victims. 

There, something stood out among the terror. A few sources of a different emotion, not the fear of all those around, but dominated by hatred instead. Three of them quick and mobile, one larger and probably an easier target. 

The nevermore angled its wings back and descended sharply toward the group. It extended its talons forward, in position to grab this large human and carry it away, and even though the prey was facing it and could see its approach, it made no move to run. 

Hazel planted his feet wide and willed the gravity Dust infusing his legs to activate in the opposite direction from how he’d been using it before. Both Qrow and Ozpin had backed off a little at the sight of the giant nevermore incoming, but Hazel stood his ground. After such an extended fight, even he was covered in streaks and smears where Tyrian’s overzealous Semblance had touched him, but even if Aura no longer protected his right hand, he would not feel the pain of impact. 

As the talons closed in, he leaned into them and grabbed them tight, and the Dust increasing his already significant weight kept the Grimm frantically flapping in place, unable to lift off again. A twist of Hazel’s body brought the nevermore’s claws to the ground by his side. The rest of the bird soon followed, crashing down on the pavement between him and his foes, one wing pinned in upward position while the other beat furiously but failed to dislodge the human that still held the nevermore captive. 

Qrow and Tyrian leapt at the same time to finish the beast off. Ozpin, for his part, took two steps to the side and aimed his cane, and fired a dark green bolt directly into Hazel’s right knee. 

Hazel’s leg buckled under the impact, through force alone if not from pain, and he collapsed forward onto the nevermore’s side. Lava Dust burned at the Grimm’s substance as he landed with one hand outstretched to break his fall. Tyrian stabbed his claw blades in as far as they would go and kept his momentum going to flip forward as well, while Qrow had his weapon in scythe form in an instant to slice through the giant bird’s neck. 

As the Grimm dissolved into smoke, all three lost their balance from where they had stood or leaned atop it. Hazel stumbled further and Tyrian suddenly found himself without a landing point. He fell nearly upside down with both arms covering his head, landing on his forearms with back arched, supported as well by his tail… which struck not the cobblestone Tyrian expected, but the back of Hazel’s unprotected hand. 

“Damn you, Qrow!” Hazel bellowed, and shoved Tyrian out of his acrobatic perch with his other arm. He stood up, still not feeling the poison but knowing it was infecting his body anyway, and slung an arc of lava toward the man whose unceasing misfortune had certainly caused the damage. 

Hazel plucked the nearly spent Dust crystals out of his right bicep and threw them one by one, creating splashes of molten stone where they landed. Tyrian hopped back from the action and glanced at his scroll, finally reading the call to retreat that had gone out a minute earlier. He glanced over his shoulder to where two girls were running toward them from the direction of Beacon Tower, and retrieved the device his master had given him. 

“As fun as this was, I’m afraid this is where we have to part ways,” he teased. “What a shame you’re both surviving. But our mission was never to  _ kill _ you…” Tyrian bowed deeply. “I thank you both for your full cooperation, unwitting as it may have been. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you all around!” He pressed his thumb down onto the button at the end of the magical device, and vanished just as Ruby and Weiss were drawing their weapons once again. 

“Don’t think this means you’re safe,” Hazel growled at Ozpin. “You can’t even kill one of me, and you’ve already made another.” He plunged his hand into one of the only pockets that did not contain a form of Dust, and before even bringing it out again, he too disappeared. 

Ruby and Weiss looked around for a long moment, unsure where their attackers had gone, but finally sheathed their weapons again when they realized they were not returning. Ruby ran to hug her uncle Qrow and the old man smiled before pushing her away, complaining that if she squeezed any tighter she might break a rib. 

They separated, both panting from exhaustion after the long fight and the run back from the vault, and then Ruby beckoned Oz closer and let loose a flood of words. “I can’t open it,” she started. “I put my hand on the door and it looked like the magic was doing something and half the door disappeared but it was just emptiness behind it and the other half of the door was still there. Then Glynda showed up and she said she’d seen Yang but she didn’t know anything about the letter she’d sent us and–”

Ruby stopped to catch her breath again, and Oz jumped in before she could continue. “We have made a critical error,” he said, his eyes wide with fear. “I should never have sent you there alone. I see her plan now, and I fear it may already be too late. If Salem has come to Vale personally… Join hands with me in a circle. We must return at once.”

Distant thuds echoed through the ground and all turned their heads to look at the enormous Grimm lumbering in from the south, demolishing buildings like paper as it simply walked through them without resistance. “Um,” Weiss started, “What about that thing? Ruby, do you think you could…”

“A goliath is  _ not our problem, _ ” Ozpin insisted, grabbing Weiss’s hand. “We must ensure the safety of the Relic first! Once it is in hand,  _ then _ we can fight for what remains of Beacon.” He took Qrow’s hand on his other side, and called forth his magic again to teleport the four of them deep beneath the earth. 

* * *

On the northern road, a motorcycle sped toward the city. The way was not easy, as the highway’s main purpose of shipping goods to and from Atlas had been shut off completely for over a year, and with no traffic to report Grimm damage, the road’s condition had deteriorated quickly. But the motorcycle was narrow and maneuverable, and in a pinch, its owner could levitate the entire vehicle over an obstacle without breaking her momentum. 

Xuri Ahavh, Summer Maiden, protector of the northernmost tip of Sanas, anxious bisexual disaster Faunus, was on her way to help. The small town of Korraska would be safe without her for a little while, especially if they heeded her warning and kept their eyes and ears averted from the news. Eliyonu, next in her circuit, would be expecting her in two days – and if the majority of the Grimm were not cleared from Vale by then, that would be a whole new caliber of problem. 

But she was confident in her ability to help. Whatever this strange power was that had come to her six years ago, it had granted her the power of a Huntress without any of the years of training one normally needed. More than that power, really – in many ways, it was almost like magic. If only she could find someone, anyone, who could tell her what was going on and help her hone these skills to even greater heights. 

The great wall of Vale appeared before as she rounded a turn. She knew she was close the moment the trees gave way to their permanently red counterparts in Forever Fall, and the sight of her goal brought a fleeting smile to her face. But it was quickly wiped away by the sight of smoke rising over the top of the wall, and six beowulves clawing at the closed gate while only a single guard fired down at them from above. 

Xuri charged a mass of magic in one hand as she rode closer. At the last second, barely thirty feet from the wall, she clamped her other hand on the brakes and swerved hard to the side, throwing out an arc of fire over the cloud of dust kicked up by her wheels. Four of the Grimm dissolved into black smoke instantly, and the other two fell to the lone guardsman's gun while Xuri parked her motorcycle and dismounted. 

Green flames rising from her eyes, Xuri looked up at the top of the wall and willed herself into the air. She kept one hand on the vehicle’s seat and it rose with her until both landed safely at the wall’s peak, and only then did the glow around her eyes go out. 

“Hello,” she greeted the terrified Vale guard. “I heard you were having Grimm problems here, and  _ wow _ , you sure are. Can you tell me where the worst concentration is? I can help take them out.”

“Um, the, uh, the southern wall was breached,” the guard stammered. “Clear across the city from here. And Beacon, of course. They don’t even have a border wall up there. Any help you can give, really, we need it. There’s just so many.”

“I dealt with residual Fall of Beacon aftermath elsewhere,” Xuri said. “This looks like the same kind of thing again. What happened?”

“Some woman murdered the entire Council! Streamed it live to everyone. And what she was saying… it’s like she  _ wanted _ the Grimm. Who would do that? Why?”

Xuri shrugged helplessly. “Why does anyone hurt others?” She glanced up at the sound of an airship overhead, watching it fly out from Beacon Academy and cross the city and forest to the west. “I hope whoever it was is caught. For now, I guess I’m off to the south wall. Thanks for the info, and good luck on this end.”

Her eyes flared up again and the guard stepped back a pace in surprise, and then Xuri was in the air again. She floated over the inner parapet and descended down to street level, and then her motorcycle engine kicked on again and she was away. 


	9. Chapter 9

Salem hadn’t been this happy in ten years. After so much time scouting and recruiting and fighting – so much effort planning contingencies six layers deep to outsmart anything Oz might try to put against her –  _ finally _ the Relic of Choice was hers. She had hardly stopped smiling almost in a daze all the way home from Vale, and she gazed into the crown’s emerald gems even now as she led her group through the castle to the main hall. 

In a way, this victory had been eight decades in the making. At the end of the Great War, the victorious King Oswald had committed his greatest mistake, and let the Relics out of his sight to place them under the care of the Maidens instead. That decision was the beginning of the end for his unilateral control over the world – because Maidens, unlike Oz himself, passed on no memory nor loyalties to their successors. 

Of course, stealing a Maiden was still no easy task, under her adversary’s watchful eye. Salem had captured a Summer once, only for her to be viciously attacked and murdered in an apparent scorched-earth policy before she even reached Vacuo. It had taken another forty years before her first real success. 

Eve had been a stroke of luck. A Winter Maiden who wanted nothing to do with magic and spurned all of Oz’s efforts to bring her into the fold… who became angry and lashed out, pushing away from all around her until a friend had shot her in self-defense. Oz had thought her dead. She wasn’t quite. Salem felt no shame in the heavy psychological conditioning she had put that poor woman through, for both now agreed that what had come out the other side was far better suited to a lifelong magical existence than Eve’s predecessor had been. 

Cinder had also seemed to be a success story, for a while. Just a bit of magic from Salem herself had produced a glove that could siphon power from others and then fused with its wearer forevermore. But then Cinder had failed as a half-Maiden, failed after taking the rest of that power as well, failed to control Spring… and then abandoned the cause entirely to pursue her own revenge. 

And yet, even as the new Fall was one of Ozpin’s own proteges, she had succeeded where Cinder and all efforts before her had fallen short. Ruby Rose had enabled the theft of the Relic of Choice. 

As well as Salem’s current team, of course. The men and women following her now as she pushed open the double doors into the conference hall. All of them had played critical roles in this operation, and they deserved to be recognized as the team that had done what had eluded all others for millennia. 

The Relic of Creation still lay on the table where Salem had left it, just in front of her seat. She picked up the staff and set the crown down in its place, and beamed at her lieutenants as they all took up their places, standing beside their chairs and waiting for Salem to make the first move. 

“Congratulations, everyone!” she began, still standing. “Tonight we all did what for millennia seemed impossible. Ozpin’s most prized possession is no longer his, and the world is safer with him weakened. And for that, I believe a celebration is in order!”

Salem pointed the Relic of Creation and four bottles of fine champagne appeared out of thin air in the middle of the table, along with a glass in front of each person. Before Salem could even ask, Eve had picked up one bottle and popped the cork with her telekinesis, and it floated around to fill the seven glasses in turn. Yang, Emerald, and Mercury were all technically below the legal drinking age in every kingdom except Vacuo, but not by much, and nobody at the table seemed to care. 

“A toast,” Salem declared, raising her gently fizzing glass high. “To Emerald and Mercury, for setting the stage and opening the kingdom’s ears.” Everyone except the two aforementioned agents drank deeply, and they all looked back to Salem as she raised her glass again. “To Eve, for calling an army of unprecedented ferocity with a most terrifying speech.” Again everyone took a gulp of champagne, while Eve floated the bottle around to top off glasses before they were even empty. 

“To Yang, our newest recruit,” Salem continued, “for using her knowledge of the enemy to bring them all exactly where we needed them, and tricking even the Lord of Lies himself!” Another round of celebratory champagne for all except the one being honored. “And to Tyrian and Hazel, for holding their own again Ozpin’s fury and giving me the window of opportunity I needed.” After another sip and automatic refill, the first bottle was already nearly empty. 

Salem opened her mouth to speak again, but felt something brush against her leg. She looked down and smiled, and leaned over to pick up the black cat who had wandered in looking for attention. “And to Nightshade the cat,” Salem declared, shifting the animal’s weight to one arm so she could raise a glass with the other, “for taking care of the castle in our absence, and for being  _ exceptionally _ cute!” She lowered her head to gently lay her face on the soft fur of the cat’s back for a moment, then let her down to wander freely across the table. 

The cat sniffed at the Relic of Choice, but found it uninteresting and trotted over to be petted by Yang. Finally Salem sat down and the others followed her example, and Nightshade wasted no time in climbing into Yang’s lap and settling down. 

“Let us also honor Doctor Watts, who could not be here today, but whose expertise with technology of all sorts gave us the tools to bring Vale to its knees not once, but two times. While we celebrate here, he remains in Atlas, tirelessly working to reorganize the kingdom after we removed the Relic of Creation for safety. Now, if anyone has remarks or additional toasts, let us hear them.”

Yang raised her glass, though mostly just to call attention. “During the chaos, I set fire to nine businesses around Vale which were reported to be discriminatory toward Faunus. Not only did we hurt that bastard Oz tonight, we’ve hit racist humans hard and shown them that that kind of behavior won’t be tolerated in our new world.”

“A world which will come in our lifetime,” Mercury jumped in as she finished. “I’m too young to have been around when the staff was taken, but I’m honored to be a part of the operation for the crown. It won’t be long before we capture the lamp and the sword as well, and then the world will be ours.”

“Indeed,” Salem said. This boy knew nothing of her actual goals, or of what would happen if all four Relics were collected by a single person, but he was useful enough in the short term. “But they can wait until the morning. Your enthusiasm, however, is much appreciated.”

“If I may dampen the mood just a little,” Hazel said as he stood up, “I believe we could have done better tonight. Ozpin was left alive, while countless others died for no purpose other than to spur him into action. I would have preferred if those positions were reversed.”

“Understandable.” Salem nodded, and took another sip of champagne. “Although I would remind you that the longer Ozpin keeps his current incarnation, the easier it may become to convert more of his followers to our side. If we can prevail upon Yang’s sister to join us, or at least abandon Ozpin’s dubious protection, then it becomes trivial to take the Relic of Knowledge. And we may strive to minimize casualties in Vacuo, if you so desire.”

Hazel nodded respectfully and returned to his seat. Salem glanced around at the group, waiting for anyone else to speak up, but there was silence for a moment before Eve rose and turned from her usual stiff position to look toward Salem with her biological eyes. 

“Tonight’s operation was a success,” Eve said. “However, Hazel still requires medical attention. I request use of the Relic of Creation to produce antivenom and other supplies I may need in order to heal him.”

“Of course. Make whatever you need.” Salem held out the staff, and it floated from her hand to rest in front of Eve instead. “Hazel, you are relieved of all duties until the doctor says you’re well enough to continue. Does anyone else have injuries from the battle?”

“Yeah, I lost my right arm… oh, wait, wrong attack on Vale.” Yang grinned and wiggled her robotic fingers. 

“You’ve more than made up for it.” Salem smiled and glanced around the table at her team once again. “You are all free to stay or go as you like. We have quite literally unlimited champagne and could even magic up a celebratory cake, but it’s also been a long day and I would suggest people get some rest soon.”

* * *

“Ah, Yang, come in. What is it?” Salem looked up from where she was kneeling on the floor of her room, in front of the bedside table whose single drawer was now heavily warded with pulsing red glyphs. “Don’t mind this, I just needed to store the crown somewhere. It’s safe to touch–” She tapped her knuckles against the drawer. “–but not to open. But anyway, what did you want to say?”

Yang entered and took a seat on the edge of Salem’s bed. The black bedspread was already pulled back to show fuchsia sheets, Salem’s favorite color and what everyone assumed was her Aura color as well, although Yang had seen very little of it in her vision of Salem’s past. 

“Thanks for not hurting my sister,” Yang said. “I know you didn’t have to arrange the plan like that. You could have taken the Relic of Knowledge too, but no one even made an attempt tonight. Even when Tyrian and Hazel saw the lamp, they just let Ruby go by.”

“Choice was more important.” Salem came to sit next to Yang. “Knowledge can be taken at any time since it’s out of its vault. But I find the possibility of converting its bearer to give us the lamp willingly the much better option.” She met Yang’s eyes and smiled. “And besides, I need to keep my team happy, don’t I? Of course I’ll take the plan that’s best for everyone.”

Yang nodded, and leaned back on her hands. “I guess that makes sense. Thanks.”

“You know, that reminds me… the next time one of us runs into your old team, there’s an important point they should realize. If the Relics were the only thing I cared about, I could have found you all personally before you even left Haven and simply murdered everyone for the lamp. Sure, Oz can overpower me in a contest of magic alone, but eventually his body will go down while I won’t.”

Salem shrugged and gave a half smile. “It’s been months since the vault was opened and I still haven’t done that. Because there’s a reason to my destruction and that wouldn’t suit it, and also because historically, many of my best agents have been converts from Ozma’s side. People like you.”

“I do my best.” Yang winked. “I don’t know if Ruby will come with us, but it won’t take much to push her away from Oz these days. But we can plan later. How are you doing? You were kind of quiet on the airship home.”

“Still in shock, really. I may not be good at showing it, but this is the best day I’ve had in… um…” Salem fell silent and racked her brain for any memory of a day as positive as this one had been. “Uh, you know what… I think we might have to go all the way back to Ozma breaking me out of my father’s palace. Although all those memories are a little poisoned by how he is now. This…” She turned to sit with one knee up on the bed to better face Yang. “This might seriously be the single best day of my life.”

“Glad I could help, then. Let’s have some more like it.” 

Salem reached out a hand, and Yang sat up again to take it. “With you at my side, I’m sure we will.” 

The pair both fell silent, each overcome with emotion. This was Salem’s day of triumph, but she had no desire to cackle madly from the rooftop while lightning flashed all around… not when she could be here, sitting with a person who understood her, staring into the eyes of the one who had made all of her joy today possible. Neither did Yang wish she could be anywhere else in this moment, not while holding the hand of the woman who had taken her in when she needed comfort and channelled her sorrow and rage into a new purpose. 

Yang lifted her free left hand off the bedsheets, just an inch, and then hesitated. Was she sure about this? But Salem had been the one to mend her heart. The one who had sat with her through all her most painful and vulnerable moments, and bared her own heart in return. Though it had been only scant weeks since their meeting, already Yang felt like her life was intertwined with Salem’s, and that to lose her now would leave her with nothing. 

Yang raised her arm again and leaned in to place it around Salem’s shoulders. The gentlest of pressures brought the witch closer to meet her in the middle, and Yang closed her eyes in quiet contentment. The delicate touch of their lips brushing together sent an electric feeling rushing through her body, and Yang sank into the sensation as it blotted out all worries from her mind. 

Wait. What was she doing? Yang’s eyes sprang open and she pulled back, fear showing on her face as she hurried to separate herself and stand up from the bed. “I’m so sorry, I – I shouldn’t have–”

Salem grabbed her wrist as she moved toward the door. Her eyes were wide and mouth slack in an all new shock totally unlike the state in which she had spent much of the return journey and subsequent celebration. “Before you go…” she murmured, still staring almost blankly in Yang’s direction. A wave of her other hand shut the bedroom door. “Do that again.”

She pulled Yang closer and the girl stumbled on the edge of the bed and half fell across her body. Salem lay back against her stack of pillows and drew Yang in with an arm around her waist. 

All of Yang’s apprehension melted away as Salem kissed her again and gently twisted her fingers through her hair. She cupped the witch’s face in one hand and lowered herself so they could lay side by side, and embraced her partner tighter to press every inch of their bodies together. 

Salem pulled back just for a moment and put a hand to the back of her head. In a faint flare of yellow, the thin metal brace under her hair teleported out into her hand, and she rested back more comfortably while carefully levitating the brace and ribbons over toward the bedside table. But as Yang stretched forward to join their lips again, her concentration on magic broke and the metal dropped and clinked against the floor. 

As a passion long buried awoke again in Salem’s body and soul, she slid a hand beneath Yang’s jacket to caress her back, and left a trail of kisses along her jawline and neck. Yang shifted her weight and raised both arms over her head to let the jacket slip off effortlessly and fall to the floor by the side of the bed. 

A twitch of Salem’s fingers pulled the sheets and blanket over the pair’s legs. She shifted to bring Yang over top of her and savored the feeling of her soft hair cascading over Salem’s arms and face as she ran her hands down her partner’s sides. 

A distant part of her mind faintly cried out that this was wrong, that she shouldn’t let herself become too close to an agent… but that voice was silenced by the pleasure of Yang’s kiss, her joyous, longing touch washing away year after year of the intense loneliness that Salem had long suppressed but never overcome. The release of emotions bottled up for ages was terrifying but at the same time liberating, and Salem welcomed the rush. 

A sigh escaped her lips and she rested back again, but only for a moment before pulling Yang tight to her again. Taking only the briefest flicker of attention away from her partner, Salem raised one hand and snapped her fingers, and every candle lighting the room went out. With the light went any last vestiges of hesitation or shame, and the pair gave in to renewed passion in the comforting night. 


	10. Chapter 10

A knock came at the door to Salem’s quarters, rousing her from the most restful sleep she had had in months. Beside her Yang stirred, but kept her eyes closed and her back to the door. Salem raised her head slightly to look at the closed door, but hesitated before waving it open with her magic. 

“This is Eve, Your Grace, bearing a report of mostly good news,” a muffled voice came through.

Salem waved her fingers and the door drifted open, helped along with a push from Eve on the other side. With one finger to her lips to signal quiet, she invited her agent in and shut the bedroom door behind her. 

Eve gave no visible reaction to the sight of Yang in her master’s bed, though the fluffy mass of black hair gave no doubt to her identity. Salem looked up at her but remained where she was, still held in Yang’s arms. She passed her one free hand over the side of Yang’s head, and a tiny barrier of greenish white flickered into view around her ear, blocking out most sound of conversation to let the girl rest as long as she needed to. 

“My efforts with Hazel have been mostly successful,” Eve stated. At her feet, the pile of clothes dropped haphazardly on the floor shifted, and one item at a time floated out to hang in the air to Eve’s side. “Tyrian’s venom has left some lasting damage simply from waiting so many hours before treatment, but he should make a full recovery,” she reported, while simultaneously folding Yang’s pants neatly and laying them back on the floor. 

“The wounds in his right arm from Dust use are healing at his usual rapid pace.” Yang’s shirt was folded as well and left on top of her pants. “However, his left arm and particularly his legs have severe inflammation in the tissue surrounding the wounds. Most Dust is simply carried along in the blood, but gravity Dust seems to damage the vessels from within.”

“Hmmm. That was a new idea he’d been wanting to try for a while.” Salem glanced to the side to watch as her black dress folded itself in midair and was gently set down next to Yang’s pile. “Will he be okay?”

“I believe so, but it will take time. He cannot walk without his Semblance active. I have fashioned him a wheelchair with the Relic, but he expressed no desire to use it.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to order him to rest.” Salem rolled her eyes. “His stubbornness is an asset in battle, but I do wish he’d take better care of himself.” She glanced over to see Eve delicately fold a pair of underwear and tuck it away beneath Yang’s orange blouse, and she felt her face flush pink and looked away. “Is… is there anything else you have to report?”

“Only a suggestion,” Eve replied dispassionately as ever, still refusing to even acknowledge the rest of the situation in words. “Depending on the progress Doctor Watts is able to achieve in Atlas, it may be beneficial to keep the staff here instead of returning it. Not only is its power useful for Hazel’s recovery, it opens up many new avenues of thought when planning to recover the lamp and the sword.”

“As well as plans for later… Once Hazel no longer needs you, return to Atlas. Send Watts home, and then steal copies of every blueprint you can find of the CCT towers. Now that the crown is finally ours, I may be able to run another operation in parallel with the rest.”

Eve nodded sharply. “As you command.” She finished folding Yang’s jacket and laid it purposefully over Salem’s dress instead of Yang’s own clothes, and then turned to leave. 

* * *

“Where is Tyrian?” 

“Training room A, Your Grace,” Mercury answered. With Cinder gone, he had quickly moved into her old seat at the conference table, and he looked disdainfully at the empty space to his right. “You want me to go get him?”

“Let him train. I have no assignment for him at the moment. But you, however…” Salem met the boy’s eyes, while next to him Emerald averted her gaze further. “I admire your dedication, and if you desire more work I can provide it.” 

“Sure. What’s the mission?” Mercury glanced around the room, but the rest of the team was silent. Yang, usually attentive, seemed to be avoiding looking at Salem just as hard as Emerald was, though doubtless for a very different reason. Across from her, Hazel was sullen in his wheelchair, kept close under Eve’s all-seeing robotic eye. 

“I need someone to keep an eye on Ozpin and his team,” Salem said. “This is not a mission to recover the lamp. Do not be seen and do not interfere with them in any way. I merely want to know their reactions to the Fall of Vale, and more importantly, to what Ozpin did during the attack and what he has said to them since.”

Salem picked up the staff from where it leaned against the side of her seat and ran her fingers down its length. “In particular, I want to find out what all of them have been saying in regards to briefly meeting Yang again, just before the attack. Has anyone connected her to us? If so, do the rest believe them? Who might be possible to entice to our side as well?”

“Understood.” Mercury nodded. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Yang look to Salem at the mention of her name, only to immediately blush and cover her face with one hand. Something was different between them now, and he could make a pretty good guess at Yang’s half of it, at least. But that was none of his concern. “You want Emerald with me? She’s the better spy.” 

Emerald’s head jerked up from staring at the table, eyes wide as she tried to suddenly look the part of the willing agent. She started to open her mouth to speak, but Salem cut her off. 

“No… This is a job for one. Emerald, you will remain here for now. Once Watts returns from Atlas, I may have you assist him in the search for the Summer Maiden.”

“Shall I go to find him now?” Eve cut in. She already had an idea of her next assignment and was eager to leave the castle and carry it out. 

Salem considered for a moment. “If you left now, it would be past midnight by the time you got there,” she said. “There’s no rush. Leave first thing tomorrow instead.” She rolled the scepter through her fingers once more, then pointed it toward the middle of the table. “And about what you said this morning… I believe I will keep Creation here for the time being. It’s just  _ so _ useful.”

In a series of faint pops of displaced air, six tiny microphones appeared out of nothing on the table, alongside a single headset with an antenna on one ear. Salem levitated them with her free hand and gestured to send them down to rest in front of Mercury. “Take those. I trust you can distinguish your marks by voice. You did spend a semester living alongside them. That will be all. You too can leave in the morning.”

* * *

Emerald lay awake in her bed. For the last hour since she had tried to go to sleep, she had only tossed and turned while visions of burning buildings and fleeing people flashed through her head. It had been the same the night before – her usual silence and reluctance had only been amplified this past day by exhaustion. But even the flashbacks paled in comparison to the torment her own thoughts bestowed on her. 

Was this what she had signed up for? Intentionally causing a panic greater than anything in recent history… and then a year later surpassing even that? How many people in Vale had died because of her tapping a few buttons on her scroll, reactivating the virus that brought Eve’s words of terror to the masses and forced them not to look away? Hundreds, easily. Probably thousands. 

This wasn’t what she had ever wanted. What she signed up for was helping Cinder. That was all. Cinder had helped her get off the streets. Because of her Emerald had had a roof over her head and food in her stomach, and helping her fight some weird girl who levitated and threw lightning was a decent payment for that arrangement. And then things had gotten out of control. 

Cinder turned out to be involved in something far beyond what Emerald had ever imagined possible, and nearly killing the Fall Maiden was only the beginning. A year later Emerald had streamed destruction live from the rooftops with her only thought being that it was ‘almost sad’, while one of the Huntsman Academies fell to Grimm. And even that, apparently, had only been the beginning. But her debt to Cinder was still not paid in full. How could it be? 

How did Mercury deal with all this? Emerald had almost liked him for a while. He had made a good enough partner while they were infiltrating Beacon, and was still tolerable to fight with by the attack on Haven. But it was like he just… felt nothing. No matter what happened, the same cool indifference and occasional smug remark. How? With an assassin for a father, one who hated him, he’d certainly become strong. But he seemed to have taken all the worst lessons to heart. 

Maybe all that talk about his father having stolen his Semblance was true? Emerald had thought it nonsense at the time. A Semblance is part of one’s soul – his father might have copied its effect while re-locking it in Mercury, but it couldn’t be  _ stolen _ . Although Mercury did sometimes seem to be soulless, despite his displays of Aura shielding. He was becoming more like that sycophant Tyrian every day. 

None of that mattered now. Mercury was just one more person she was trapped here with, and she hated him the same as the rest. 

She had no one. Not even Cinder, now. All the eager service Emerald had given, all the… yes, if she was being honest with herself, she had loved Cinder… not that her feelings were ever returned. All that was gone now. Cinder was gone. 

Why? Salem had told them all that Cinder was alive after the failure at Haven. And yet no rescue mission was ever sent. Salem had abandoned her. Even as she followed their enemies to Atlas in a desperate attempt to keep up the work of her cruel mistress, she had received no help. And then she had been killed, alone, without Emerald there to even try to save her. How could Salem do that to her?

Emerald had owed her savior everything… but that debt was gone now. Her life was her own. What was she to do with it? Stay bound to this insane mission of destruction? Why? But Tyrian had made it abundantly clear that there was no leaving Salem’s service, once she had joined. 

But still… the Fall of Vale was a step too far. If it was all just for that crown, why did they have to kill so many? The strong prey on the weak, yes, that’s how the world works… but these weaklings were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. The strong gained nothing from their deaths. 

What if it was the strong who died for once? The sudden thought gives Emerald pause, but turns itself over and over in her mind. What if there was a way to escape this madness? And not only for her own sake, but to stop the senseless killing of who knows how many others in Vacuo or the rest of the world? Many of those who died in the Fall of Vale were the same uncaring people who had treated Emerald like she was invisible when she needed their help… but many more were likely in the same position as her younger self, without shelter when the storm had come. Those, at least, were worth protecting, right?

If she were to kill Salem… it would all stop. There was no way this group would continue on without its leader. Emerald would be free. Cinder would be avenged. Remnant would be safe from whatever else had been planned. 

But did she have the courage to go through with it? Mercury wouldn’t help her. No one would. Even Yang, who’d been Salem’s enemy for so long, now acted like she was in love with her. Emerald had never commented on the repeated private meetings, long after Yang had given up all her actionable information… but she had definitely noticed. She’d even seen Yang leaving this side of the castle early this morning, when she knew for a fact that her bedroom was across the main hallway. 

If something was to be done about Salem, she had the sneaking suspicion it would have to be soon. She had no proof that Yang had spent the night in Salem’s room, but enough evidence to suspect that if it hadn’t happened yet, it likely would before too long. And while Emerald had nothing against simply killing them both, it made her escape that much riskier. Better to avoid the hassle. 

Although, now that she was seriously considering it… what life would she even have, if she did take this group down and flee? There was no Cinder to take her in, this time, so it would be straight back to that horrible life on the streets. But… at least out there she’d be free, and she’d have a chance to do better than before. And if she failed, well, better to go down fighting than to slowly waste away in some back alley in Mistral. 

For once in her life, Emerald had to find the courage to take a step on her own. No more paying off a life debt. No more just following orders. No more being complicit in the fall of a kingdom and all the horror that followed, even if it came at a personal cost. 

Emerald threw off the blankets and sat up on the edge of her bed. Her weapons rested on a rack across the room. It was now or never to save herself and the world. She just had to be brave. 


	11. Chapter 11

A piercing scream roused Yang from her slumber. She bolted upright and cast off her blankets, and stumbled toward her bedroom door in a half-asleep stupor. Yellow Aura flickered over her body as she checked that her protection was in place, even though with her extensive Huntress training she manifested it almost without thinking. 

Across the narrow side hallway was the door to Watts’s room, still empty and waiting for him, but down at the end Tyrian’s door swung open as well. He ran out into the hall, robotic tail at the ready, and followed Yang in the direction of the noise. Muffled yells could be heard now as well, but apart from the word “alive” nothing was possible to make out. 

Yang and Tyrian rounded the corner into the front hallway of the castle and crossed over the central area in front of the meeting room’s wide double doors. Salem’s quarters were just on the other side, and her door stood open. 

“You’ll have to try a lot harder than that!” Salem’s words were clearly audible now. There was a flash of pink light from the doorway followed by a thud and a crash. An incoherent scream answered her, and a heavier crash like a table or dresser shattering into pieces. 

As Yang approached, now quite awake, there was a loud crack like lightning and Emerald flew backward from the doorway and collapsed against the far wall. Before she could even struggle to her feet again, multiple straight lines of brilliant fuchsia shot downward from the doorway to converge on her body. 

Salem stepped out of her bedroom. She wore a simple black t-shirt and loose pants that ended just below the knee, and her hair floated menacingly in the air behind her head, defying gravity to clump itself into six forward-curling strands in a loose imitation of her usual style. Her hair was wreathed in a thin sheen of pink and the same shade covered her hands, but curiously enough, her eyes lacked the wispy red that accompanied the use of magic on Grimm. 

Most important, though, were the two olive green blades piercing up to the hilts in her chest. The chain between them hung in a loop down to Salem’s ankles, swinging gently as she moved forward. In front of her, Emerald was unarmed and frantic, clearly not expecting her victim to survive her assault and counterattack. 

Emerald staggered under the force of a cone of magic, and her Aura flickered and died. She glanced to either side, seeing Yang and Tyrian close at hand and Hazel just exiting his room opposite them, and made a desperate lunge forward at Salem to reclaim her weapons. 

Salem held up one hand and a circular section of force field manifested in front of her palm, expanding outward a short ways to knock Emerald back a step and throw her off balance. Her other hand lit up brighter, its previous pink glow changing to orange, and she pointed with two fingers. A lance of light shot forth, piercing through Emerald’s body and leaving a smoking mark on the wall behind. 

Emerald crumpled to the floor facedown at Salem’s feet. The rest of the team looked on in horror at the four inch wide hole through her upper body. Yang glanced up to Salem’s face, still a mask of fury, just in time to catch Mercury and Eve coming around the corner at the far end of the hall to stand next to Hazel. 

“In case some of you were not yet aware,” Salem snarled, giving only the briefest glances around before returning her baleful gaze to Emerald, “I cannot be killed.” She sneered at the body, and finally pulled out the two blades to cast them down at their owner. _“Don’t try it.”_

Salem planted one bare foot on Emerald’s shoulder, and a cone of bright turquoise light flashed outward from the body. The same color shimmered over its entire surface and slowly crumbled into motes of pale blue light that floated up and disappeared into the high ceiling, until nothing remained except a scorched wall and a slight stain of blood where Emerald had fallen. Without another word, Salem turned on her heel and marched back into her room, and the door slammed shut behind her. 

Tyrian was the first to break the silence, with a giggle that quickly turned to a full on laugh. “That’s what happens to people who attack the Queen!” He looked to the closed door and frowned. “I do hope she’ll give the next one to me…”

With that disturbing implication he left, and Eve went a moment after. She magically pulled Hazel by one arm to steer him back toward his room just next to Salem’s, while quietly admonishing him on the use of his Semblance and the possibility of slowing his body’s healing by being up and about. 

Mercury and Yang were the last to go, still staring dumbfounded at the bloody floor. Neither of them had particularly _liked_ Emerald, but they were teammates and both had spent a full semester at Beacon with her. And now she had tried to kill Salem, not knowing how futile a task that was. 

Mercury stepped over the spot where his former friend had fallen, passing Yang by to head back to his bedroom the other way and make a full loop around this section of the castle. He shook his head with a frown, and as he left Yang faintly heard him mutter a single word. “Idiot.”

She was starting to really dislike him even more now. Despite the pain Emerald had caused to a person Yang loved, she couldn’t really blame her for the attempt. Not when Yang herself had had the same goal for so long. If only Emerald had known the full truth, maybe she could have been brought around. Maybe the suffering on both sides could have been prevented. 

* * *

“Yang…”

At the sound of her name, Yang looked up from her scroll. She had woken up maybe fifteen minutes earlier, after a not very restful second attempt at sleep. Now Salem stood in her doorway, dressed as she usually was but with an uncharacteristically downcast expression on her face. 

Yang beckoned her in, and turned her desk chair around to face Salem as she took a seat on the bed. “Are… are you okay?” she stammered, a little unsure of herself. 

Salem sighed heavily. “I have no wounds,” she said. “As always. Physically, I am in perfect health, although I can still feel where I was stabbed.” She kicked off her thin shoes and swung her legs up on the bed, propping herself up against the headrest with Yang’s pillow behind her shoulders. “But in every way other than physical, I’m not doing so well.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Yang pocketed her scroll and gave her best comforting smile. 

“I don’t know. I… I should have seen this coming. I think I did see this coming, in a way, but I didn’t do enough to stop it.” Salem looked exhausted, like she hadn’t slept another minute since the attack. 

“You can’t blame yourself,” Yang jumped in before Salem could go any further with that thought. “Emerald made that choice, not you. It’s not your fault.” She’d probably been beating herself up over what happened all night, but no more. 

Salem shook her head. “I _knew_ she wasn’t loyal. I didn’t assign her with Mercury because I thought she might take the chance to disappear in Vale. But I didn’t think she’d try to _murder_ me.” She absently rubbed at one of the spots where a blade had pierced just hours ago. “She wouldn’t really have been worth chasing down if she did run away. But still, I’d rather have kept her with us. That Semblance was a good one.”

Yang’s eyes remained fixed on the spot Salem touched. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” she asked. “Maybe you should get Eve…?”

“I’ve already sent her to Atlas. It’s not worth delaying her just for this. I’ll be fine… in a day or so, at least.” She looked down and away from Yang’s eyes, and flicked her fingers to shut the door. “I know it’s not a healthy thing to do, but I do self-harm. When I stab or cut myself it’s okay, because I’m prepared. But being stabbed by someone else, when I don’t expect it? That really hurts.”

Yang was silent, unsure how to respond. Before long Salem beckoned, and indicated a spot next to her, which only only made Yang’s awkward internal panic spiral further. But she forced herself to stand and cross the small room to sit with Salem anyway, even as her heart raced and color flushed to her cheeks. 

“Thank you…” Salem said quietly as she took Yang’s hand in her own. “I know it’s strange. This is new for me too. But something about being with you makes me feel better.”

Yang began to turn around, but stopped before she could quite meet Salem’s gaze. “This… What is this? What are either of us doing?”

Salem gave a small shrug. “Finding comfort where we can? What more can anyone do in a world like this?” She smiled wistfully and stroked the back of Yang’s hand with her thumb. “What we did was unusual for both of us, yes… but I don’t regret it. Do you?”

“You… don’t? I thought…” Yang’s breath caught in her throat. “I thought once you were… you know, out of the moment, that you’d realize it was too far and you didn’t want me near you.”

Salem smiled and squeezed Yang’s hand. “Just the opposite. I’ve hardly stopped thinking about you since. Even when you were too embarrassed to look at me.” 

Eyes widening, Yang finally twisted to face Salem again. “You mean you…” She leaned in closer, then hesitated. All the breath left her and she looked down. 

“What is it?” 

“It’s just… I’m sorry, I was just thinking how… I never got to do any of that with Blake. And now, it feels like…”

“What happened was not your fault.” Salem sat up and wrapped Yang in a tight embrace. “As you were just saying to me. Sometimes people just do things that are good for no one, and the rest of us have to pick up the pieces. You’re not betraying Blake by finding someone else. You’re taking care of your needs. Wouldn’t she want you to be happy?”

Yang closed her eyes and let herself relax in Salem’s arms. “I suppose you’re right.”

“In the past, I’ve avoided becoming too close to anyone,” Salem admitted. “For countless reasons, some of them good. I know I’ll outlive every lover I ever take… but isn't it still worthwhile, in the moment? With someone I have no secrets to keep from? Now that half the Relics are mine, and that much of my attention is no longer tied up?” 

She pulled Yang in tighter and rested her head on her shoulder. “If I were to engage in the second serious relationship of my life, now is the perfect time, and you’re as perfect a person as any I’ve found over the centuries. As long as you feel the same way?”

What else could Yang possibly say? “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, of course!” 

“Then if all the world should be our enemy and every hand should hold a spear, still we stand undefeated as we build a joy they cannot touch.” 

Yang vaguely recognized the quotation but her momentary thoughts as to its source were cut short, as Salem shifted to face her more directly, and leaned in for a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was a short-lived redemption arc. RIP Emerald. You tried.


	12. Chapter 12

The library was even more impressive than Yang had imagined. A massive space deep beneath the castle, protected inside the mesa’s stone without a window to the outside world, a square sixty yards to a side devoted entirely to Salem’s memories of a world past. These thousands upon thousands of diaries constituted the only surviving records of much of the past twelve millennia of human history, and here they were safe from all the dangers of the world outside. 

This was the only area of the castle not lit by candlelight, instead by hovering glass spheres in the air over top of the bookshelves each glowing with a magical light in white or the occasional pink. They drifted placidly through the open space like the stars of the distant, hidden sky, lending a sense of calm and gentle motion even when a visitor stood still in the doorway in the shock of taking in the sights. 

Yang had entered at one corner, the room opening up ahead and to her left. Shelves stretched parallel to the left wall down half the length of the room, then stopped at a wide aisle that led to the center. At the midpoint of the outer wall was a small table and two comfortable chairs, watched over by a painted portrait of a young girl in a blue dress. _Iryllia,_ the plaque below it stated. Salem’s eldest daughter. 

On the far side of the small rest area, the lines of bookshelves were arranged the other way, filling the next quadrant of the room with lines perpendicular to those that came before. These, however, were uniformly devoid of books. Nothing special was in the corner, but at the midpoint of the next wall came another table, beneath a similar portrait of a slightly younger girl dressed in orange. _Osenne._ Yang completed her circuit, passing by portraits of girls in green – _Serava_ – and finally the youngest daughter in pink – _Tylleyn_ , only five years old when her portrait was painted. 

Finally she looped back to the entrance, and only then did Yang check the map posted just by the door. It confirmed that the library was divided into quarters, each with shelves lined up in direction opposing its neighbors. A zigzag path was marked out from the door through the nearest quadrant to the center, before jumping back to the outer wall and turning the corner to zigzag again. It came out to a complete unbroken loop in the end, but as Yang had seen on her brief tour, nearly all of this place was empty. 

How far into the future was Salem planning to use this library? Yang counted the books on a single shelf, walked down to the end of the row again, and did some mental arithmetic. Three hundred thousand books, if this room was full? Barely a tenth of the shelves were occupied in the present moment, but even that was an inconceivable amount. All the lost history of Remnant, stretching back almost to humanity’s destruction at the hands of the gods. All recorded by a single person with all the time in the world and no other way to occupy herself. 

Yang picked up a book at random from one of the shelves in the middle of the sequence. At the top of the spine was what seemed to be a month and year on an unfamiliar calendar: 4 / 381 FP. Much of the spine was covered in thin stripes of several different colors, then at the bottom it listed a date just four months later. Glancing at the other books around it, that seemed to be a typical length of time for Salem to fill an entire volume’s pages. 

_Sylvia’s mission was a failure,_ Yang read from the middle. _She returned today, unhurt but with nothing to show for her trip to Aethinor. She was intercepted before even setting foot in Lux Palace by one of Osric’s spies. Well, that’s one new thing we’ve learned, I suppose. He augmented another footsoldier. A man with a whip and offhand sword, who was given invisibility magic. That won’t be easy to take down._

_I almost wish I could hang back until that one dies of old age, and takes another sliver of Oz’s magic with him. But the recent peace treaty between Aethinor and Windrise cannot be allowed to stand. If Charava joins them, that’s world unity on the political front. Faunus slavery is still commonplace in every kingdom and that may count as division enough… but the gods never met the Faunus. They may be excluded from the judgement’s terms entirely._

_I can’t risk it. I fear I may have to do to Windrise the same thing that happened to Pallain. I hate this. All I want is for the world to be free. Why can’t he understand that the masters he’s so devoted to were wrong? How many thousands more will die while he keeps the Relics from me?_

The bottom two inches of the page were blank except for a few drips of dark reddish brown that contrasted with the black ink. Several of the spots were smeared out, like a finger had tried to wipe them up only to make the stain spread further instead. The entry for that day continued on the following page as if nothing had happened, but the handwriting was shakier and it became a more terse reporting of facts rather than the stream of consciousness before. 

Yang grimaced and put the book back, and turned to the shelf opposite it to pull out another. _Nothing to report,_ Salem had written on the first day of a year labeled twice as 656 FP and 003 MU. _The loose alliance calling itself Mistral seems to be holding together after all. Frysta is restless but I have no mission to give her. Whenever I see her she is agitated and acts like she wants to say something important to me, but she never does. Nothing to do on either front except wait and see._

Mistral was the oldest of the four modern kingdoms, and known history only went back a few centuries before its founding. Yang had never paid that much attention in her non-combat classes, but reading these journals felt more like a fantasy novel than actual history. Especially seeing the names. It was strange to think that the convention of having a color somewhere in one’s name was only eighty years old, and that for most of Remnant’s history that had not been a cultural standard. 

She could stay down here for hours just pulling random books from their shelves, longer if she tried to read in order even over just a year or two. Maybe she should do that, actually. Salem was supposed to be meeting her down here, but there was no sign of her yet. Something must have come up, though the castle was nearly empty now. Eve and Mercury were away, Emerald was dead, Hazel was healing but still not fully mobile… and unless Tyrian had taken a break from his usual routine of spending hours at a time in the training rooms, Yang couldn’t think of what might be holding Salem up. 

She walked down to the most recent aisle of bookshelves. There was a whole section labeled as “The Great War”, although in smaller print beneath it the four kingdoms involved were named. There had been other great wars before, and there would likely be more to come. Yang flipped through the first book briefly, then took it and the next with her to the center of the square library. 

There was a table here just like the others, with four chairs set around it. All but one of the seats were piled high with books, blank inside, lacking the color-coded stripes on the spine that marked the rest in a system only Salem knew. Yang sat in the only free space and opened her book, and let the time slip away. 

* * *

“Sorry I’m late.” Salem’s voice jerked Yang out of her book. “What have you got there?”

“Start of the Great War. It’s a mess. What was Mantle thinking?” 

“The same thing people always think.” Salem bowed her head. “They were afraid. So terrified of death that they gave up the very things that gave life meaning. It’s no surprise that such a mandate backfired.”

Yang flipped the book shut. “It’s just sad. They should have known they’d only drive the arts underground. The same amount of emotion there, plus who knows how much resentment toward the government for imposing the order. They made their own Grimm problem worse.”

“That’s right.” Salem nodded, and beckoned for Yang to follow her as she led the way back to reshelve the borrowed diaries. “Mistral knew it would breed anger, but they wanted to keep their ally happy. So they sacrificed all the outlying territories to the Grimm while keeping the capitol free.” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “I don’t think there was a single Mistral Emperor who I actually liked.”

“Yeah. That’s no way to rule a kingdom.”

“You know, I probably should have told you what we were looking for before I sent you down here.” Salem shrugged. “Watts arrived from Atlas and I had to debrief him. It took longer than I expected. The kingdom is upset that the staff was removed, but hardly anyone actually knows that that’s the reason production has dropped so much. Meanwhile, we’re here to look up anything I may have forgotten about the Relics. All of them.”

“Sounds good. This place is amazing.”

“It is. I only wish I’d started the project sooner. All of Ozma’s second life and a good five centuries afterward has no records from the time, only the highlights I remembered later.” Salem drew Yang’s attention to one of the many small signs studding the shelves. “These give notes on any particularly valuable information. Find one that talks about the Relic of Choice. It should be about a century after the founding of Mistral, I think. I’ll look for records of Creation or Destruction.”

With that they split up, Salem heading into the distant past while Yang remained in recent times. She’d seen something about the founding of Mistral earlier, where was it… 

The start of the calendar labeled MU, that was it. Mistral Unification, probably, given that a past Salem had described the early kingdom as an alliance. Going forward from there… a formal unification as expected, the choosing of the first Emperor, said Emperor’s sudden demise in a Salem-related incident, an attempt by Ozma to claim the throne next – wait, what? How would he have any legitimacy unless by a fluke of reincarnation luck?

Yang pulled out the book marked by the tiny sign and started reading. _The system with Corvus and Yulia is working wonders. With his kindred link Semblance bonded both to her and to me, I can station Yulia anywhere and get the fastest reporting spy I’ve ever had._

An agent named Corvus? With a Semblance seemingly identical to that of Yang’s mother? Was this some distant ancestor who had worked for Salem centuries ago? Apparently spying ran in the family, as Qrow and Raven had also been intended as such when Ozpin gave them bits of magic for transformation. 

_Mistral may be a short-lived experiment after all, if it can’t survive losing its first leader. Unfortunately, Ozma has lived in the area for a few centuries now, and he seems to have plans for it. Both of the states Aethinor split into after the civil war were part of the original coalition, after all. Corvus tells me Oz has arranged for a new convention and proposed choosing a second Emperor in the same manner as the first, except strictly from a different state of origin for fairness._

_That includes himself as eligible, as well as the Fall Maiden who’s under his thrall. Some of them may not go for a female Emperor, although if anyone lets that slip to Fall herself, she’d be perfectly justified in burning them all to a crisp and seizing power without the convention’s assent. It’s what I would do in her place._

Yang read on, engrossed in the story from five centuries earlier. To think she had always considered history a boring subject… That was never the problem, only the way that history was presented. Here, seeing a day by day perspective from someone who had lived it, there was nothing more compelling. 

Her stomach growled, breaking her concentration away for just a moment. She blinked, finally seeing the book rather than the words, and realized she was more than halfway through. The new Emperor Naya, thankfully not an incarnation of Oz, was in his third month of ruling Mistral. 

How long had she been here reading, leaning against the shelves and intending to move on any minute now, after just one more page, one more entry? She had a job to do. She had something to find and it wasn’t this. But now that she stopped and took notice, she really was hungry. Maybe a break was in order, and they could discuss what Salem had found. 

Assuming she hadn’t gotten sidetracked as well.


	13. Chapter 13

“You got sidetracked as well?” 

Salem hung her head. “I did. I rediscovered the story of Vexia, the first Maiden I really worked closely with. She was a Spring. I basically adopted her as a daughter, since, you know, the original was. She was with me for a good forty years… until Ozma murdered her. Her successor went random because I was in her final thoughts and I’m not eligible myself.”

“I’m so sorry…” Yang stared out the tall window across the table and room from her seat. “I’ll kill him for that. Again. You and she both deserved better.”

“She’s already been avenged a hundred times over.” Salem looked down, but not to the staff in her lap. “There’s always some new reason to kill him,” she murmured. “He can’t go a decade without committing some great injustice or another. And I know I haven’t been much better, but…”

Yang reached out to rest her hand over Salem’s. “You’ve done the best you can, and it’s been enough. You’ve kept the world safe for thousands of years. And now look, you’re even winning this fight.”

Salem turned her hand over to clasp their fingers together. “Not  _ winning _ , but it’s finally a balanced field. Two against two… though I suppose I do only need one to take away his control. That’s what I wanted to talk about, actually. A plan to really change the game.”

“Oh?” Yang raised one eyebrow.   
“Normally this would be material for a general briefing, but you should know first since the current plan is a two person job. For ages now, I’ve worked in the shadows, outside the kingdoms. But now that I have these two Relics, I can afford to take a more overt approach. With the crown to back us up in case things go wrong… I think we can go public. Claim some power on the world stage, maybe even found a kingdom of our own.”

“…What.” Of all the things Yang expected to hear, that was about the farthest thing from any of them. 

“I need to check my notes on the Relic of Choice to be sure, that’s why we were in the library yesterday… but I believe it does something with time, like an insurance policy to make sure choices work out the way you want. We can test our luck on even the boldest, most ambitious plans, and if the world responds poorly, there’s no harm done.”

“So what’s the two person job?”

“We’re going to use Creation–” Salem held up the staff in one hand. “To raise a fifth CCT tower. We restore global communications while Vale’s tower is still down, and as everyone logs on at once to see what happened, we go live with a broadcast. The exact speech can be worked out later, but the idea is to prove two things to the world. One, that we have unimaginable power, and two, that for the low price of the world’s support, we intend to use that power for good.”

Yang’s eyes narrowed. “I’m still not seeing how both of us come into it.”

“Two reasons. You showing up alongside me sends a message to your sister and team – and to Oz – that you endorse this mission, and upon seeing us in action they may decide to join us. Also, simply a practical matter: I have magic, the staff has magic, seems like a waste to stack those two together when instead, we could have an extra pair of hands.”

Salem held out the Relic of Creation, but Yang was too stunned to take it. Salem let it roll from her fingers onto the table, and continued. “We will bring life to the desert, and the world will watch. We will show them salvation and glory through our works of magic, and then, just as they did for Oz and me once before, the world will kneel before their new queens. And then we may remake it all in whatever image we desire.”

Yang beamed at her partner, still somewhat overwhelmed, but with her excess of emotion steadily turning to joy. “You think that would work?” she breathed, before her smile spread too wide for her to speak for a moment. “We can start by mandating equal rights for Faunus in every kingdom. We can discredit Ozpin, remove his people from the Academies and Councils… Maybe even find the Summer Maiden just by putting out a public call for her help.”

“All that and more.” Salem leaned back in her chair with a satisfied grin. “That’s the ideal case, anyway. Actually pulling it off depends on Eve getting us the CCT blueprints, and us finding the details on Choice in the library.”

“I could spend ages down there,” Yang said. “That reminds me though, one of the books I looked at mentioned someone interesting. Do you remember a person named Corvus? With a Semblance that opens portals to other people? I think he and I might be related.”

“Really?” Salem looked away and concentrated. “What time period?”

“Early Mistral history.”

“Hmm… Oh, I think I remember him. Yeah, it’s coming back to me. Corvus was one of my best agents that century. You think he’s your great great who knows how many times great grandfather?”

“Possibly.” Yang ran her fingers over the staff in front of her, but did not pick it up. “My mother and uncle are named Raven and Qrow so that name fits the theme, plus his Semblance sounds a lot like my mom’s.”

“I don’t have the records to prove it either way, but he did have a son during the time he worked for me. How does Raven’s Semblance work exactly?”

“Anyone she forms a close emotional bond with, she can make a portal to them. Me, dad, Qrow, and previously that decoy Maiden she had with her.”

“I see.” Salem nodded. “Corvus’s wasn’t exactly like that, but close. His was…” She felt her cheeks flush with warmth and looked down, covering her face with one hand. “Oh gods, I forgot about that. I really hope you two are not related… if only to save myself a little bit of embarrassment.”

Yang tried to suppress a smile, but morbid curiosity got the better of her. “Oh no. What is it?”

“He… the way his Semblance changed to a new target… I, um. I may have had to, uh… Listen, his wife agreed. We had to get him linked to both of us at once  _ somehow. _ ” Salem’s face turned even more red and she lowered her head to rest on the edge of the table. 

Yang cracked up laughing. “You didn’t… oh my gods, you really – both of them?! At once?” She leaned back in her chair, grinning. “Anything for a good spy, huh? I can’t believe you actually did that.”

The sound of someone clearing their throat came from the opposite end of the meeting room, and Yang glanced over to see Hazel standing in the doorway, carrying the cat Nightshade in his arms. Her laughter faded away and she reached over to put a hand on Salem’s shoulder. “Um, Salem, there’s… someone here to see you.”

Salem looked up, and suddenly straightened in her chair to give at least a belated impression of being serious and professional. “Hazel. What is it? You know you shouldn’t be walking unaided.”

“That’s exactly the news I wish to report, ma’am. I am not using my Semblance right now. I believe my legs have recovered from the gravity Dust damage.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good news. We should still check with Eve before clearing you completely, however. Her medical knowledge does not always extend to humans, but it’s still more than the rest of us know about the subject.”

“Dr. Watts isn’t a medical doctor?” Yang asked. 

“Doctor of Philosophy in Robotics Engineering,” Salem answered her. “He built Tyrian’s new tail. He’s also talented in electronic security of all sorts, both building it and dismantling it.”

“If he was a medical doctor, I’d want a second opinion.” Hazel turned and left without another word, taking the cat with him. 

“So,” Yang began, catching Salem’s attention again and lifting the Relic of Creation, “You want me to use this thing, right? How do I make it work?”

“It’s simple. It works on focus and will. Hold an image in your mind, or a concept, and then just  _ want _ it so hard that it becomes real. Try it now, see if you can make something. Just point the staff and focus.”

Yang stood up and pointed the Relic down at the table in front of her. There was one particular thing she wanted to have here, which she hadn’t had on her when she first joined the team and had not picked up in Vale. Something she could really use in this isolated castle – although with the discovery of the library on the lowest floor, she no longer lacked entertainment as much as she had before. 

She focused on the image, solidifying it in her mind. Every detail was fixed as she imagined it sitting on the table, until she thought she had focus enough for the Relic’s use. Next came will, the harder part, manifesting not the target object itself but feelings within herself. She did want it, yes, that came with simply trying to use the Relic, but that wasn’t enough in itself. 

Yang closed her eyes and tried to block out everything else from her mind. Nothing mattered anymore except the feeling of cool metal in her hands and the image she wanted to make real. Not just wanted – she needed it, yearned for it, pleaded with reality to bend its rules for her just this once… 

There was a faint pop of air and Yang’s eyes sprang open again. A deck of cards now rested on the table, identical in every way to the picture in her mind. A smile spread over her face and she looked to Salem, who gave a pleased nod in response. 

“You did it,” Salem said. “Good job. It will get easier with practice. Then we can both scale up until together, we can create whole buildings in one go.”

“But first,” Yang cut in, “how about we put my creation to use? As long as we’ve got some time to kill, there’s a card game I think you’d be good at. Something I used to play way back at Signal, though I never quite got my Beacon team into it.” 

She picked up the deck, flipped through it briefly to make sure it contained all the cards it should, then began to shuffle. “Ever heard of a game called Mao?” Salem shook her head. “It starts out simple and gets more complex the longer you play. I’ve had the same game go on for over a year before.”

“Sounds interesting. What are the rules?”

Yang grinned. “Well, that’s the thing. There  _ are _ rules, and they’re reasonable and self-consistent… but I can’t tell you what they are. Figuring them out is part of the game. We’ll both add more as we play, to challenge each other.”

“I see…” Salem pulled her chair forward a little and angled it more toward Yang. “I’m ready. Bring it on.”

Yang smiled at her partner again, and winked. Without another word, she dealt out five cards to each of them and flipped a single card off the pile in the middle. “The game of Mao has now begun.”

Salem picked up her cards. “So who goes first?”

“Talking.” Yang slid a card off the deck and handed it to Salem. 

“What?”

Another extra card for Salem’s hand. She opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it and simply took the penalty. That was two rules now that she knew already: don’t speak, and presumably holding fewer cards is better. As Yang placed one card over the face up one on the table, that answered her first question and gave clues to some of the many others she still had. 

She was learning quickly enough. A card of the same suit as Yang’s passed without incident. And the game continued in silence. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took longer than usual. I've been in online class hell, and also writing basically every fic except this one. Hopefully we're back on schedule for the last couple chapters.

Salem waited at the castle’s docking area as an Atlesian airship flew in from the northeast. The simple text she had received from Eve a few hours ago had said merely “Mission complete” and that was all, but that was enough to be excited about. Eve had always been reliable and thorough, a good agent even if a little lacking in conversation. 

The airship glided in and turned to put its right side to the mesa, and gently settled down on the narrow rock protruding from the side of the castle. The engines switched off, and a moment later Eve appeared in the side hatch and floated down to the stone floor. She held one hand out motionless to the side, and her scroll floated in the air and typed a message by moving the entire keyboard over her stationary finger. 

A single portable drive floated out of her pocket as she approached. “Here are the documents you requested,” she reported, handing the drive to Salem. “Complete blueprints for all five main CCT towers, as well as several minor relays.”

“Five?” Salem raised one eyebrow, then turned to walk with Eve up the stairs to the castle entrance. 

“General Ironwood drew up plans for a new tower to replace the one lost at Beacon. He planned to place it on top of Amity Colosseum. However, no construction was ever begun, as our work with the Council and Dust company blocked his attempts to requisition workers and supplies, even through military channels.”

“I see.” Salem stepped through the wide double doors as they opened before her under the force of Eve’s magic. “If he’d managed it that might have been good, actually. The Fall of Beacon required a loss of global communications for a time, but having it down for this long is inconvenient to us too. Although with Ironwood in charge, I wouldn’t trust him not to do something colossally stupid with it, like telling the world everything he knows about Oz and me. Maybe it’s better he never got the chance.”

“I would recommend stopping here,” Eve said, halting in the middle of the main hallway that ran the length of the castle’s top floor all the way to the conference hall on the far end. “I have projection files as well as flat blueprints.” 

Salem stopped beside her, and plugged the drive into her scroll to view the folders of data Eve had brought her. There was a wealth of information here, more than she probably needed. Blueprints not just of the final versions of each tower, but even the earlier proposals for a Mantle tower. Judging by the dates, the network had been planned for years before the Great War broke out and stalled the work. Little wonder then that its completion was a gift of reconciliation to the world. 

“Greetings, Your Grace,” a new voice called Salem’s attention from the other side. Watts stood at a respectful distance from her and Eve, and gave a slight bow. “Eve told me I was needed for a technical explanation. In the middle of the hall, of all places.”

“Yes, I expect so,” Salem told him. She tapped the first file on her list, the Atlas tower, and all watched as a thin projection of translucent blue expanded into the space beside her. 

It was a scene of all of Atlas at first, quickly narrowing to focus on the very peak of the city, Atlas Academy. The rings of public transit faded out of view and the tallest tower in the center became highlighted in yellow, showing where exactly was part of the CCT and what buildings around it were unconnected to that purpose. 

“Bring up the main four all at once,” Eve instructed. Salem waved a hand to push the Atlas projection off to one side, and opened the visual files for Mistral, Vacuo, and Vale one after the other. Each one began as a wide view and zoomed in on the tower, although none were quite as built into their surroundings as the Atlesian CCT. 

“So, if I wanted to create a new one of these, what are the main parts I’d need to keep in mind?”

Watts’s eyes widened and he took a half step back. “A new CCT? Here? I’m afraid this has never been  _ quite _ my area of expertise exactly, but…” He steeled himself and stepped up next to Salem. “May I see the projection controls?”

Salem hesitated just an instant, then handed over her scroll. With her other hand where Watts could not see, she made a small gesture to Eve, who moved just enough to keep an eye on him without it seeming conspicuous. 

Watts made a few taps on the screen, and the outer layers of each projected tower were stripped away, showing the habitable space through much of the inside ringing a central core. Sections of machinery were highlighted in various colors as he pointed to them. 

“Transmission comes from the outer shell of conductive material, over the entire height of the tower,” Watts explained. “A new tower would have to be roughly the same height as the existing ones to use the same type of signal, and therefore connect to the network. To be a true CCT rather than a local relay it would also need a cap with direct links to all the other main towers, maintaining the skywave net and self-reinforcing into the bilateral power supply. Ideally, the existing towers would also need to be modified.” 

“I see,” Salem said, nodding sagely despite her growing confusion. “How does that work?”

“The signals themselves, the same long-frequency waves that carry information, also carry energy. The towers blast out far louder than strictly necessary, to ensure the kingdoms never have weak signal, but that means energy is being lost beyond the borders. Each tower captures this leftover from the others and reroutes it back into production, thus greatly lowering the cost of operating them all.”

Surprisingly, the details actually did help her understand. “And in more poetic terms, as it was put when they were first built… the world speaks together, or not at all. I finally understand why now. Because if one tower goes down, the others would need a prohibitively large boost to stay connected. All they have power for now is the local area.”

“That’s correct, Your Grace.” Watts highlighted a section of each hologram near the base. “These are the generators. High capacity, multiple backups, insulated in the center where nothing can get to them.” They faded back to the same blue as their surroundings, and another segment lit up just above. “Much of the central column’s height is servers. Those are the most costly part, and however much data storage you think you’ll need, multiply it by a hundred, minimum.”

“Maybe use the Relic in two stages then?” Salem proposed. “If everything else is simple enough, we could do that first then focus extra effort on making the highest quality computers imaginable – literally.”

“A sound idea,” Eve commented. “So long as you get the requisite connections between parts. I wouldn’t want to have to put things together manually, especially not with the Relic’s… unconventional ideas about how technology works inside.”

Watts tapped a few more buttons on Salem’s scroll, highlighting different sections of the towers. “Up above is coolant systems for the hardware. It vents hot air off the top of the tower. This is arguably the most important part, unless you want all the servers to break down.”

“That reminds me,” Eve cut in. “A curious thing I found in the older blueprints: there was originally a plan to dump colored powder into the system as a kingdomwide warning signal. Apparently that idea got scrapped sometime during construction.”

Watts looked horrified at the suggestion. “That’s just  _ asking _ for grit to get everywhere and gum up the works. Apparently my predecessors eighty years ago did  _ something _ right, getting that part taken out. If only Atlas today were still willing to listen to engineers over soldiers.”

Salem looked to him for further guidance, but Watts seemed to have finished presenting all the major parts of a communications tower. “If that’s all,” she said, pausing one last time to confirm, “then I suppose I should start practicing. Although, now that I think of it…” She frowned and started pacing back and forth next to the row of holograms. “What am I going to do with all the early attempts while I’m getting it right? Maybe I need the Relic of Destruction too before this plan can go ahead…”

“Shall I look for the Summer Maiden?” Eve volunteered. 

“No, I think there’s probably an easier way. I’m going to call Mercury back and see if Ozpin has mentioned her. Go back to Atlas and see if you can remove General Ironwood from a little more of his power. If we go public and the Atlas Council immediately bows before us, that sends a strong signal to the other kingdoms.”

“Understood. Our pawns outnumber him, but only if all three vote together. Shall I frame him for the recent drop in production, saying he’s been secretly siphoning materials to Amity? When the scandal comes to light he may be pressured to resign as General, even if he stays on as Headmaster.”

“That seems like a solid plan. You could set yourself up as his replacement if you like, unless it would be too much work for you later? Watts, do you have any suggestions?”

“Let Sleet take over the military and elect Jacques Schnee to his former seat, perhaps?” Watts handed Salem’s scroll back to her, and clasped his hands in front of his chest. “He’s wanted a Council seat for some time now, and I know he would be easily turned to our side.”

Salem considered the idea. “Sleet does have the background, but he’s not active military now… In the short term, though, that could give us four votes even before the special election. Anyone else would have to be loyal from the start, if we’re to maintain a majority even in the event of one vote defecting.” She nodded. “Alright. Eve, push for that scenario if you can. Watts, you are dismissed.”

* * *

“So that’s what I’ve been doing all morning.” Salem lay back on her bed. “I ought to get down to the library and record my findings, but I’m just too tired right now.” 

Yang sat down next to her and held her hand. “Sounds like a lot. I could help with the next round?”

“Right. You’ll need to get these patterns firmly in mind too. It will be easier to make the real thing with both of us concentrating.” Salem sat forward briefly to undo her complicated hairstyle, then rested back again. “Not now, though. Right now I need a break and a good distraction.”

“Well…” Yang smirked. “I think I can take care of that part.” She turned to kneel on the bed, resting some of her weight on Salem’s legs. “I wouldn’t want my wonderful girlfriend to be too exhausted to conquer the world, now would I?”

Salem laughed and pulled Yang closer into an embrace. “Not necessarily  _ conquer _ , that implies force, and the last time I tried that it didn’t–”

Yang kissed her. 

“Shhh, this is a distraction,” Yang whispered when they separated. “No thinking about work, not now…”

Salem smiled, and shifted her weight so Yang could lay beside her. A flick of her fingers pushed the door shut, but the latch struck the doorframe gently and bounced back. She stretched forward to press their lips together again, and ran her fingers through Yang’s long hair. She still had worries about their later plans, so accustomed she was to plotting contingencies ten layers deep for every possible step and anticipated counter, but they faded from her mind as she and her partner’s passion grew. 

Suddenly Yang broke away, eyes wide, and clutched at Salem’s arm. She lay halfway off the side of the bed, nearly falling, and Salem gave a gentle push of telekinesis to lift her back to safety. 

Wary of being close to the edge again, Yang rested over top of her partner, supporting herself on her elbows and knees as she gently caressed Salem’s face. She gazed into Salem’s eyes and found nothing but softness and comfort within, and a desire focused only on her, untempered by other concerns. She leaned in again, savoring the feeling of Salem’s arms around her, and– 

A voice came from the doorway. “Your Gr–” was all that came out, before giving way to a startled cough. Yang looked up in shock, frozen in her position, to see a tall man in a plum overcoat with one hand raised as if to knock, eyes wide as he looked in on the scene. 

Salem flushed pink and turned her face away to hide it from view, but she couldn’t move with Yang’s weight resting across her. Yang, for her part, remained petrified just a moment longer. She knew who this was: the only member of Salem’s team she hadn’t yet seen. And with their first meeting so sudden and startling to them both, her thoughts short-circuited across all details of her compromising position and landed squarely on the default mode of greeting. 

“Hi! You must be Watts!” Yang smiled broadly and extended a hand, still otherwise unmoving, but the visitor did not cross the room to shake it. 

Watts blinked rapidly and stumbled back a step, slowly lowering his hand back to his side. He shook his head as if to clear it, but the sight before him did not change. Mouth still hanging half open in disbelief, he turned and walked back the way he had come. 


	15. Chapter 15

Yang and Salem walked hand in hand down the spiral stairs at one corner of the castle. Neither could quite face the thought of practicing with the Relic of Creation again right now, so it was on to the other, more critical half of the plan: studying up on the Relic of Choice. 

“You know I’m going to have to record that, right?” Salem asked. “Pretty embarrassing now, but at least future me can get a laugh. I don’t know how I’m going to face Watts again though.”

Yang shrugged. “Look him in the eye and dare him to say something? What’s he going to do, spread rumors about his boss’s love life? Tyrian would never stand for it.”

Salem laughed, and let go of Yang’s hand to push the door open ahead of them. “I suppose that’s right. Watts has never much liked same-gender couples, although I’m not quite sure why. Any preference in partners that I once had has long since been unlearned.”

“Ehh…” Yang shrugged. “I don’t think I could see myself with a man. I just wish I could go back and slap some sense into my younger self about that. It took until Beacon for me to realize that caring about boys was all just an act to help me fit in.”

“But you know now, and that’s what matters.” Salem led her partner through the aisles of books on the lowest floor of the castle, seeking out a period of history that was actually fairly recent, as far as her library was concerned. It was a time still known to modern historians, at least. Not yet lost into the legends, stories scattered through time that mankind has always been so fond of telling, and of distorting further with each new recollection. 

“Almost there…” The beginning of Mistral passed by with barely a glance, and Yang mentally marked the spot where she could come down later and keep reading the stories she had looked at before. “Here we are.”

Salem stopped just over a century farther down the shelf and pulled out a book whose spine was almost entirely the pink that signified positive events. A small marker on the shelf mentioned the Relic of Choice along with some names Yang didn’t recognize. 

“I thought there were mentions earlier but if we go searching, I know we’ll both get sidetracked again. This one I know has something relevant.” Salem flipped to about a third of the way through the diary. “Ah, here we go. Summary of the report from Erik Olafsson, defector from Osrial’s inner circle. Recorded here in its entirety a week following his arrival, now that his lengthy debriefing is finally complete.” 

_ According to Erik, the history I recall is false. The world was not meant to go as it has; it should have seen my first step toward success already months ago. Osrial has altered the past. How many times has he done so before, and I have never noticed? Is this why it has taken ten thousand years and I still cannot lay claim to even a single Relic? _

_ In our shared pasts, Erik once worked for King Osrial of Vale as a spy in the court of Emperor Byara of Mistral. Vale is a young kingdom, and one of Byara’s first acts upon taking the throne was to send aid that may have saved Osrial’s latest project from a Grimm fate. Thus, he was gifted the lamp of Knowledge to care for during his reign, without knowledge of what it was he held. It is common practice for Oz to keep the lamp separate while he wields the other three on his person, but only rarely does he send it so far afield.  _

_ I’ve had my own spies in Mistral too, of course. Lyra was a great help as the Empress’s preferred waiting-lady. Erik tells me she should have survived the firefight in the palace, but this time someone was waiting on her escape route. He seems almost more distraught over that than our failure to recover the Relic.  _

_ In both our accounts, Osrial came to know that Lyra was one of my lieutenants. He wished to take the Relic of Knowledge back to Vale before I could set a plan in motion, but he had no excuse to rescind his gift from an Emperor who had never wronged him. So he plotted to assassinate Byara and claim the lamp from his successor. Erik, as his agent in the court, was tasked with luring the Emperor into a trap.  _

_ And so Erik did, but he had plans of his own. He placed the Emperor into danger as assigned but then chose to save his lord, and received great reward from Byara in thanks. A good decision for the people of Mistral, as Byara was a popular Emperor, but not what Oz desired. Apparently, that alternate version of me managed to prove King Osrial’s involvement, and the subsequent deterioration of diplomacy allowed me to steal the Relic and extract Lyra safely.  _

_ That is not what I remember. After the loss of the lamp Erik says he was recalled to Vale, where Oz showed him the power of the Relic of Choice. With the crown on his head, he called the name  _ _ Sophia _ _ , and a green phantom asked what choice did he regret? Erik reports that time was frozen around them with only himself and Oz capable of motion. This was to be a lesson, Oz said to him. Erik’s mistake would be corrected, but he would have to live with the memory of having allowed Salem a victory.  _

_ King Osrial instructed the Relic to alter Erik’s choice to save the Emperor, thus becoming the timeline I and the rest of the world know. Byara was killed in an ambush, and the palace fell into chaos. By the time the news reached me here, Lyra was dead and the lamp had been returned to Vale.  _

_ But Erik never agreed with his king’s choice. He still thought the timeline that he alone recalled was better – for himself, for Mistral, for everyone except Oz. So he sought me out and declared his new allegiance. His skills as a spy are well proven and I do still need a replacement for Lyra’s position, although I have doubts about his proposal to return to Osrial’s court as a double agent. It may be wiser to fake his death and then send him to search for lost Maidens.  _

“Doesn’t look like there’s anything relevant after that point,” Salem said, glancing at the next few pages then flipping back again. “A little planning, a lot of me blaming myself for what happened to Lyra, and then it looks like I acknowledged that this was still a net win. Defectors are always some of my best people.”

Yang grinned and laid her head on Salem’s shoulder. “I try.”

Salem laughed and returned the side embrace Yang gave her. “Of course. You know better than anyone what the most recent Oz is like, and what his priorities and plans are. You know his other agents and exactly what he’s been telling them. One person angry enough at Oz to leave him is worth a dozen spies.”

She snapped the book shut and returned it to the shelf, then turned to give Yang a quick kiss on the forehead. “So there’s our refresher course on what the Relic of Choice does and how to use it. The crown’s name is Sophia, and she shifts time to make sure choices go the way you want. That’s a very useful power.”

“And it sounds like we  _ can _ use her for the CCT plan,” Yang added. “If she’s anything like Jinn, we’ll only get three uses, but that’s enough. Especially if we can wait and see if something goes right the first time before calling on Sophia to fix it.”

Salem nodded, and took Yang’s hand to lead her down the shelves to the end. “We do our best to gain support. If Atlas doesn’t follow us, we make them. That’s one. One kingdom falling in line from the start will make the others more receptive. Then, if your friends don’t leave Oz, we  _ could _ make them. That’s two. But we should hold at least one use back and wait a year for anything unexpected. If we have to do a hard reset by calling down Sophia on our own past selves, we can. That’s three, and then we can try again.”

“Sounds good.” Yang stopped short as the library door loomed in front of them. “Wait, we can’t be leaving already?”

“We both need to practice more with Creation, and come up with what we’ll say to the world.”

“But…” Yang spared a glance behind her. “But… books!”

* * *

“Why did I teach you how to play Mao?” Yang dropped her cards on the table as another round came to an end. “You’re too good at this. It’s not fair.”

Salem only laughed. “This game isn’t exactly designed to be fair. Every win compounds and makes it easier to build up a streak. You’re only missing two laws, though. That’s not too bad.”

“About to be three,” Yang grumbled. “I just don’t understand this ‘waterfall’ thing. I know that if you use it then I  _ probably _ have to as well, but not always! And sometimes it just happens randomly too.”

“Nothing is random, you know that.” Salem smirked at her partner. “Any guesses about leaves in the wind?”

“I’ve kind of been ignoring that one because it doesn’t come up as often.”

“Well, not for you. Why might that be?”

Yang thought for a moment. “Ohh… it happens more often when you’re closer to winning, doesn’t it? So as soon as I figure out the other laws, that one suddenly starts coming for me. Great…”

“That’s the idea!” Salem finished shuffling the deck, but kept the cards in hand for now. “I suppose I could have a  _ little _ mercy on you before we start again. The thing about waterfalls is that they don’t just happen in an instant, they start and then keep flowing until blocked off. The law is the same way: when something happens, it applies to every card from then until the condition comes again.”

Yang stared at her. “Okay… that would do it. I may have to steal that idea, actually, if I ever win a round again.”

“Who knows? It might happen.” Salem glanced away from the game as the tall door creaked open. “Or, we could take a break for a while. Stay if you like. This may interest you too.”

Mercury entered the meeting hall and shut the door behind him. Salem waved him over to Hazel’s seat at her right hand, directly across from Yang. 

“So… What has my dear Oz been up to these past few weeks?”

“Not a whole lot, Your Grace,” Mercury answered. “People get so  _ boring _ when they’re depressed.”

“How are Ruby and Weiss?” Yang knew they were part of Mercury’s spying mission too, as was anyone who spent time near Oz. 

“Like I said, depressed. Don’t see why. Sure, the Grimm flattened half the city and they’re  _ still _ adding to the official death toll as they excavate bodies, but it’s not like they knew most of them.” 

Mercury rolled his eyes, and pushed his chair back to rest his feet on the table. “Ozpin’s group have been volunteering with repair efforts. Damned inconvenient. I nearly got conscripted to help too a couple times just by sticking close enough to listen in. Other than that, they’ve got a house in the southeast and it doesn’t look like they’re planning to move any time soon.”

“Good.” Salem nodded, even as she glared at the boy’s metal boots. “And they still have the lamp with them?”

“Yeah, Ruby’s got it. I don’t think they’ve used it.”

“Then it would appear to be our move. They will be wary of using the lamp’s last charge. We have time, on that front. Tell me about the team’s opinions and relation with Oz.”

“They’re  _ pissed.” _ Mercury gives a concise but accurate answer. “Apparently Ozpin dragged Ruby away from a goliath before she could flash it, so they’re all blaming him for the dozen people it killed.”

“That bastard,” Yang spits. “Anything is more important than people’s lives, right? Even the tiniest chance of keeping another Relic under his control.”

“He also knows you’re with us,” Mercury continues. “Hasn’t managed to convince your friends, but he’s sure of it himself. I had a mic planted in his room and you would not  _ believe _ the amount of time he spent pacing around in there talking to himself.”

“How does he know?”

“Sounds like Hazel said something to him when they fought. Something about having created another copy of him? That’s you, I guess. You both like punching things and never know when to quit.”

“And we both came to Salem because Oz let someone we loved die.” Yang’s eyes narrowed. That was the important part, that really marked her and Hazel as alike. The rest was coincidental. 

“Oz also pointed out that you teleported out of his house, same way Hazel and Tyrian left their fight. That’s gotten a couple of them on the fence. He hasn’t mentioned the Hazel thing though.”

“Of course not,” Salem cut in. “If he did, he’d have to explain what it meant, and that would mean telling the truth about what he did to Blake. They’d all turn on him.”

Yang slammed a fist on the table. “Then we tell them the truth. They deserve to know. We do it at the same time we’ll be speaking to them anyway. They see us together, what we’re doing, and I bet we can get every one of my friends to give you a chance.”

Salem smiled and leaned back in her seat. “It will certainly drive a wedge between them and Oz, and that’s what we need. Now, Mercury… did they ever speak about plans for Vacuo and the Relic of Destruction? That would be a natural choice for their next movements.”

“Yeah… we may have a problem there.” Mercury scowled. “It sounds like they’ve found the Summer Maiden. Can’t tell if she’s with them now or if Ozpin just revealed what he knew, but he’s been pushing for a trip to Shade.”

“All the more reason to act swiftly. If he has found Summer, she won’t have known him for long. That loyalty can still be broken. Do you have anything further to report?”

Mercury considered for a moment. “Nope,” he said, and swung his legs back off the table. “That pretty well covers it. You need anything else?”

“Not at the moment.” Salem gave Yang a quick glance, then returned her focus to Mercury. “I believe we’re almost ready to move ahead with the primary plan. I would like everyone here on standby in case a show of numbers is needed. The world as we know it is about to change forever.”

A cruel grin spread across Mercury’s face, not quite to the disturbing level Tyrian could show, but close. “The promised new world…” he almost whispered. “I look forward to seeing it at last.”


	16. Chapter 16

Two sets of footsteps crunched on the dry red earth of the plains of Darkness. Salem walked away from the castle she called her home, a mile out in the desolation beyond, but despite the silence and emptiness of her surroundings, she felt none of the isolation that so often plagued her through centuries of lonely work. Not while her loving partner walked beside her, ready with a smile and comforting touch if ever Salem faltered. Not while the beginnings of victory were so close at hand. 

It still surprised her, sometimes, how fond she had grown of Yang just in this short time. More surprising still was how much that fondness was returned. It was always easy to notice when one of her agents was interested in her – a majority of the men she’d employed through the ages had been, and more than one might expect of the women. Salem’s inner circle had always been a haven for outcasts, whether due to a propensity for murder or simply for loving someone who society disapproved of. But to find an agent who wanted her for  _ herself _ , not for power or influence, someone who loved her just like they would any other… that was truly rare. 

The thoughts that she should push away still came, but less often now. So long Salem had spent alone, focused on her goals almost to the point of asceticism in the rest of her existence, that it was habit now. She didn’t need other people. Not in that way. She couldn’t allow herself to become close to anyone. 

There were legitimate reasons behind those thoughts, as much as she was going against them now. The world had to come first, and being too attached to an agent could make her unwilling to send them on a perilous but necessary mission. And even the safest lover would die eventually of old age. To Salem, heartbreak was a force that could reshape the world, and experiencing it a second time might dangerously destabilize everything she’d worked so hard to achieve. 

But now? Things were different, now. Since taking the Relic of Creation almost a decade ago, the majority of her stress had lifted away. Since taking Choice last month, it was nearly gone entirely. So long as the staff and crown were under her control, the world was safe… and all that focus and energy needed a new purpose. Why not take the chance to find happiness where she could, now that she could afford it? With those Relics in particular, even the inevitable heartbreak might be pushed off indefinitely. 

“This spot look good?” Yang’s words snapped Salem out of her reverie, only for her to fall into a new enchantment. Yang was dressed all in white – her usual style of long pants and a light jacket, but bright like fresh-fallen snow with only the hems standing out in her Aura’s yellow. Yang had created the outfit herself with the staff and modeled it for Salem before, but still the witch could only marvel at her partner’s beauty. 

“Uh, Salem? You okay?” 

Salem blinked rapidly to clear her head. “Yeah, fine, I’m just…” A smile spread over her face. “You look amazing.”

Yang grinned as well. “Aww, so do you! And even better with your hair down like that. I made this to match with you, you know. Would have done the same kind of dress too, just… not really my thing, you know? If I can’t run and fight in it…”

Salem laughed, and gave a mock sigh. “You close range types… Everyone knows the proper way to fight is to just point your finger and blow something up from fifty feet away. Besides, if your clothes don’t flow behind you as you walk, what’s the point?”

She looked around at the area, well away from any of the large protruding rocks that littered the plains of Darkness. “And yes, this spot should do nicely.”

Yang raised the staff she held and pointed its tip out in front of the pair, and a video camera on a tripod popped into existence. “Ready for the practice run, then? I know my lines. You?”

“Of course. Once through the whole thing, then we’ll raise the tower and do it for real. Watts has made the new intro. Black queen piece on red, like before, then it flickers and splits in two so there’s a white queen next to it. The background fades out first so it’s chess pieces over the plains, then the queens blink out and we’re behind them.” Salem gazed down at the emerald-studded crown in her hands, then set it down on the ground next to the camera. “Come here, let’s get in position.”

Yang shifted the staff to her left hand, and took up a spot next to Salem where they could hold hands between them, directly in front of the camera. It was off and unpowered, but having it present would be good practice to train their gaze toward the audience. 

Salem gave Yang’s hand a squeeze and smiled, then looked directly into the aperture and began her speech as they had practiced. “Greetings, people of Remnant! My name is Salem.”

“And I am Yang Xiao Long. We are responsible for the restoration of global communications, and we have a message for you all.”

“As you can see behind us, we have constructed a new CCT tower,” Salem continued. “Wait, we have the castle behind us. Let’s turn the camera.” A wave of her fingers picked the tripod up with magic and shifted it to face a wide open plain a good distance from the castle plateau, and she and Yang relocated together to stay in view. 

“Alright, so, we have constructed a new CCT tower here on the plains of Darkness, across the northern sea from Vacuo. This forgotten land is not lost or uninhabitable; it is our home, and we are raising a new kingdom here together.”

“There is more to this world than people know,” Yang said. Introductions were over, now to background knowledge before the show of power. “Magic is real, although unfortunately, limited. Only a few people at a time may wield it, but we are among those few. Watch as we use magic before your very eyes to bring life to this wasteland.” She swept the Relic of Creation outward in a wide arc, breaking eye contact with the camera to continue its path. 

Nothing happened, for this was only the dress rehearsal. Patches tested on the other side of the castle proved that Yang could cause grass to spring up where she pointed, but they couldn’t interfere with this environment before the time was right. 

“Watch,” Salem repeated after her, “as we, your Queens, transform this barren place!” She let go of Yang’s hand and charged a ball of brilliant teal magic between her hands. When it had grown to proper size, she thrust her hands upward – and clenched them into fists to squelch that power before release. Staring up at the sky, she commented to Yang, “That should clear away the pink clouds and give us a regular blue sky that people are used to. We both step back a ways, you create more grass and trees… I keep handling weather, shift some earth around, maybe try for a rainbow if I can manage it.”

“Of course. And you’re also secretly calling in some Grimm for later.”

“Yep! Like that one.” Salem pointed up at a large nevermore slowly circling above them. Her red eyes glowed slightly as she exercised her magic through the Grimm infusion in her body, and the nevermore turned to face the pair and swooped lower. “That’s your cue.”

“Look!” Yang called out, pointing at the Grimm. The camera followed her arm, tilted by Salem’s telekinesis. “Even the creatures of Grimm cannot threaten us! All of this world is at our command, even them!”

The nevermore dove toward Salem, bypassing Yang even as she was a slightly closer target. At the last moment it angled its wings forward again and swept its talons out – and froze in place, surrounded by a deep purple outline. Yang and Salem both had one empty hand outstretched toward the beast, though magic only flowed from one. After a moment paralyzed for show, the nevermore crumpled under immense pressure and finally burst into black fog that dissipated with a flick of Salem’s fingers. 

Both stepped up to face the camera once again. “But we have no desire to rule all of Remnant with an iron fist,” Yang declared. “We shall guide the world with the wisdom of millennia and we shall right its wrongs, but this kingdom alone will know our reign directly. All those who wish to settle here may do so. You will be well provided for. You will be well protected, as the Grimm cannot harm their masters.”

She dropped back again to leave Salem alone with the camera, waving the staff of Creation some more. This would be the time to spread life further afield, so it no longer looked like a tiny oasis in the red desert. 

“We desire only to help the world,” Salem addressed her imaginary audience. “However, magic is known to some, and we are not without enemies on that front. In ages past, this world knew two kings who ruled like tyrants, bending all to their whims without regard for justice or reason. My efforts drove them away from Remnant, but they left behind an agent as immortal as myself, but infinitely more insidious.”

She paused the script to turn back to Yang again. “I’m going to need a sword for this part,” she called. “Conjure one as you say ‘you will be well protected’, and then hand it to me before you step out. If I’m claiming immortality, I’ll need to prove it.”

“Ouch. Better you than me.” Yang started to return, but Salem waved her off. 

“Not now, just remember for the real thing.” She turned back to the camera. “Our enemy has many names and many faces, and he habitually inserts himself into positions of power to direct the kingdoms like puppets toward his own ends. Recently he has sat on the High Council of Vale himself, where he presided over the Fall of Beacon and took that chaos as an opportunity to vanish back into the shadows. Now, recently, in the tragic events now known as the Fall of Vale, the entire rest of the Council was exterminated except for his own personal successor.”

She paused briefly to let that sink in, then continued, “The enemy I speak of is named Oz. Through all his changes, that much he has never let go of. Oscar now, previously Headmaster Ozpin, Warrior-King Oswald, the composer Berlioz, Osmium the explorer, King Osrial of Vale, and a whole line before them stretching back to this world’s beginnings. I realize this is a serious claim and I cannot prove his reincarnation, but I  _ can _ prove my own immortality.”

Salem mimed stabbing a sword into her own chest. “You’d think it would hurt less the thousandth time,” she muttered to herself. “But it never does.” She waved Yang closer, but kept speaking as her partner approached. 

“Do not be taken in by his promises of unity and peace, for he wishes only to call back the cruel masters which this world escaped once before. That way lies slavery to unmerciful gods. Choose instead the freedom of self-determination for all, in an empire free of threat from Grimm. There shall be no day of judgement for our world, only growth into our full potential without need of outside blessings.” She put an arm around Yang as the girl came to stand at her side. “Let us be your guides on the path to greatness.”

“This world has suffered much,” Yang picked up the speech. “I have seen it. I was there at the Fall of Beacon, where my friends Penny and Pyrrha were killed. The organizer behind it, Cinder Fall, is dead. I was there at the Battle of Haven, where Headmaster Lionheart was killed. The organizer behind it, Adam Taurus, is dead by my own hand.” She held up her mechanical right arm and formed a fist in front of the camera. 

“And I was there at the Fall of Vale, where the Council and so many others were killed. We were not able to stop that destruction, but the goal Oz meant to claim was kept out of his hands.” 

“As Queens of a new kingdom,” Salem added, “we assure you that no such disasters will occur here. And as magical leaders of the world we offer assistance to any kingdom who wishes to ally with us. I know the Mantle wall is in bad shape. To show our goodwill and further prove our abilities, we will personally repair it with magic within twenty-four hours.”

Yang gave her partner a questioning look. “You sure we can do it in one day? Me with the staff, you and Eve putting blocks in position, but still that’s a  _ big _ hole to plug.” She twirled the Relic in her hands, then stepped forward to drop it next to the other. 

“Alright, I’ll make it two to give us some wiggle room.” Counting the five hour travel time to Atlas, a longer clock would definitely help. 

“We have all known loss in these kingdomwide disasters,” Yang said, getting back on track. “But they are not the only threat to peace in our society. Someone I loved was killed in a racist terror attack. Her name was Blake Belladonna. Countless others have lost their lives as well because people refuse to acknowledge that Faunus lives are worth just as much as human. And I say: no more! That is one thing we  _ will _ enforce across the world. We stand for fairness and justice, and we will not tolerate the hatred of an entire species.”

“Neither will we accept bigotry of any other sort,” Salem clarified. “How could we, when we ourselves are among those commonly disliked?”

She and Yang turned toward each other, and moved as one to join in a kiss. They held each other close and both longed to forget the broadcast and simply delight in the moment, but pulled away before losing control. Smiles lingered on the two women’s faces even as they looked back to the camera. 

“I’m still not quite comfortable doing that in front of the whole world,” Salem muttered. 

“Well, that’s what practice is for!” Yang declared. “We’ll just have to keep doing it until it feels natural. Come on, give it another try.”

Salem burst out laughing. “I don’t think that’s the issue,” she said. “And there will be plenty of time on the way to Mantle. Just put out the last part and we’ll call this dress rehearsal over.”

Yang nodded, and cleared her throat. “We welcome everyone to join us. All those who are looking for a better life away from oppression. Anyone who wants to share in the honor of a kingdom’s founding. Those who wish to learn from an immortal’s knowledge, or study Grimm in perfect safety. All this we offer and more. You see before you that the primal forces of creation are at our command, and under our guidance we will build up this world to greater heights than it has ever seen.”

She slipped her hand back into Salem’s, returning the pair to the exact pose they had started from. “And one final note, a message to my sister Ruby, my teammate Weiss, my friends Jaune, Nora, and Ren… Please, you can do better than Oz. You know better than anyone how empty his promises are, how little he cares for the lives around him, how much he has  _ failed _ at being the hero he told us all he was. I made a choice to find a better path, and I have. Join me. Join  _ us _ , please. I love you.”

Yang broke off and rested her head against Salem’s shoulder. “And I also love you, Salem. I’m glad I found you. I don’t know where I’d be right now if I’d never come.”

“I’m glad we found each other,” Salem corrected her. “I have a pretty good idea of where  _ I’d _ be if we never met, and I like this version a lot better. I love you too, Yang.” She leaned in for another quick kiss. “Now, that all went pretty well, I think. Only a couple changes to remember. And after that–”

“We immediately get bombarded with messages, and we ignore them all because we’re getting straight onto an airship headed for Atlas.” 

“Of course. Let’s take a quick rest and then do it for real.” Salem slipped her hand out of Yang’s and picked up the two Relics from next to the camera, and handed Creation back to her partner with a smile. “And then we keep a close eye on the world’s response and use this thing–” She held up the crown. “–to smooth over any issues.” 

Yang rolled the staff through her fingers. “I’m ready if you are,” she said. “Let’s head over there and build our tower.”

“Alright. It’s time to show the world who we are.”

Salem extended an arm, and Yang nestled in close to let Salem’s magic wrap around her. The pair vanished together, reappearing close to a mile away on another stretch of flat ground, and they gazed out at the site of the new CCT. Here would be the undoing of the Fall of Beacon’s greatest consequence. Here would be a public statement of Salem’s intention toward good, now that her possession of the Relics permitted it. 

Here would be the beginning of a new era. 

All they needed to do was hold the staff between them and concentrate on the forms each had drilled into their minds already, perform their speech just as they had, and the world would be born anew. Salem beamed with pride at her partner for all they had accomplished together, and with joy at Yang’s mere presence in her life – and with a love she hadn’t felt since the world was young. 

She turned that gaze downward for just a moment to the treasure Yang had helped her to gain, and she could almost feel the power within. Choice, like the one Ozpin had made to value a connection over a life. Like the one Yang had made to seek out her enemy’s comfort. Like the many Salem had made to take her in, to care for her, to bare her own heart in return and reap the rewards of being loved. 

Now it was time to take their biggest step, together. Thinking only of Yang, and the future they would build with each other, Salem lifted the crown and for the first time since taking it from its vault, placed the Relic of Choice upon her head. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This was fun to write and I didn't need _much_ of an excuse to write more soft Yang/Salem content, but thank you as well to Fairytale108 and Soulstealer1987 for giving me the little push I needed to get started. I do have definite plans for a TTNOD sequel now as well, but it's not currently my top priority. For now it's back to Vox Faunus and the associated series, so if you haven't read those yet, go check them out!


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